Ramaphosa says EFF launched ConCourt case against Parly's impeachment process against him as an election tactic
It's been almost two years since the National Assembly rejected an independent panel report that found a prima facie case for the president to answer to in connection with thousands of US dollars stolen from a couch on his Phala Phala farm.
President Cyril Ramaphosa replies to oral questions in the National Assembly for the first time in the seventh parliament. Picture: Presidency
CAPE TOWN - The president said that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) launched its Constitutional Court case against Parliament’s impeachment process against him as an election tactic three months before the May polls.
It's been almost two years since the National Assembly rejected an independent panel report that found a prima facie case for the president to answer to in connection with thousands of US dollars stolen from a couch on his Phala Phala farm.
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday heard that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s farming activities have never been a secret and that it was unlikely he intentionally breached the ethics code in this respect.
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President Ramaphosa said it was untrue he's not been held accountable by Parliament over the Phala Phala saga and that the EFF merely does not like the outcome of the 2022 parliamentary process.
Ramaphosa's lawyer, advocate Geoff Budlender, argued that by its very nature owing to the powers accorded to the National Assembly under the Constitution, the impeachment of a president has a political dimension.
"The question is not whether the president acted correctly in all respects, it’s if he got it wrong in some respects, this is shown to have been deliberate and in bad faith."
But Budlender said the panel went too far in considering the hearsay of former spy boss, Arthur Fraser, when his version of events could not be backed up by witnesses or evidence.
"The president’s farming activities have never been a secret. He's published a book of photographs of the particular breed of cattle in which he has a particular interest. It seems very unlikely that he deliberately and in bad faith ignored the law and then publicised his activities."
Earlier on Tuesday, the African Transformation Movement (ATM)'s Anton Katz argued there had still been insufficient explanation for the thousands of US dollars stuffed in a sofa on the president’s farm, that’s now become the subject of a burglary trial.