Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa says he has noted the preliminary report on Phala Phala but will not comment yet, as he awaits the final report.
The Public Protector’s Office cleared him of any wrongdoing in connection with the 2020 robbery at his farm in Limpopo.
Opposition parties had asked her to investigate whether Ramaphosa violated the Executive Ethics Code after the robbery.
In an almost 200-page preliminary report, Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka said her investigations found that Ramaphosa did not contravene the Executive Ethics code.
Gcaleka found that there was no proof that Ramaphosa was actively involved in the running of the farm.
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“The allegation that the President improperly and in violation of the provisions of the Executive Ethics Code exposed himself to any risk of a conflict between his constitutional duties and obligations and his private interests arising from or affected by his alleged paid work in Phala farm is not substantiated,” Eye Witness News quoted Gcaleka as saying in the report.
According to Daily Sun, speaking after laying wreaths at former ANC late president Inkosi Albert Luthuli’s grave in KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday, Ramaphosa said:
“I note the Public Protector report is that all about I can say in terms of Public Protectors rules, once the preliminary has been issued, the less, the better because she still has to issue the final report.”
In the assessment of the evidence, the Public Protector’s office said most of the complaints before it were based on the criminal complaint by former spy-boss Arthur Fraser, who first blew the lid on the scandal in June 2022, the report said.
Fraser alleged that Ramaphosa had concealed the theft of several million dollars from his farm in 2020.
He accused the president of having the burglars kidnapped and bribed into silence instead of reporting the matter to the authorities.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
