‘Nothing but nit-picking and twisting my words’: Ramaphosa on ATM’s Phala Phala court pursuit

The African Transformation Movement’s (ATM) court papers on Phala Phala are “an unfortunate nit-picking exercise” and do not meet the standard for a successful court review, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in court papers on Tuesday.

Ramaphosa was responding to the ATM’s court challenge, filed in July last year, to the public protector’s Phala Phala report which cleared him of breaches of the Executive Ethics Code in relation to the robbery at his Limpopo game farm in 2020.

The ATM challenged a number of public protector Kholeka Gcaleka’s findings as irrational in law, including where she cleared Ramaphosa of having undertaken remunerated work, which is prohibited by the constitution and the Executive Ethics Code.

In clearing him, the report differentiated between receiving a passive income and performing paid work, saying it was “imperative” to consider the purpose of the prohibition, which was to ensure members of the executive gave their undivided attention to their government duties.

“In the Executive Ethics Code there is therefore nothing per se problematic with members of the executive holding financial interests which may provide them with another source of passive income,” said the report.

Gcaleka found Ramaphosa’s role at Phala Phala was one of investor and trustee. He did not undertake remunerated work in breach of the code.

The ATM’s Vuyo Zungula said this finding was irrational because Ramaphosa’s “own version” showed he did breach the code.

The exercise by the ATM of taking words out of context and then twisting them does not establish a review ground

—  President Cyril Ramaphosa

Zungula said Ramaphosa had “sourced buyers for the purchase of game” but the president said there was “not a scintilla of evidence to support this assertion”.

It was “rather the ATM’s take on the fact that I had advised [farm manager] Mr von Wieilligh there were potential buyers of the buffaloes from the Middle East and other African countries,” said Ramaphosa.

Zungula’s claim was also based, according to Ramaphosa, on the facts that Ramaphosa had determined the price of the buffalo, had given [lodge manager Sylvester] Ndlovu instructions on how to handle the money and “told an ANC conference, ‘I am a farmer’, ‘I am in the cattle business and the game business’, ‘I buy and sell animals’,” said Ramaphosa.

He said the ATM’s case on this score was based on “selectively quoting” from his response to the public protector or his address to the ANC conference “and then twisting my words”.

“The exercise by the ATM of taking words out of context and then twisting them does not establish a review ground,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the ATM’s other grounds for challenging the public protector’s report were equally flawed.

He said Gcaleka’s findings that had been challenged by the ATM were “factually and legally unassailable”.