CR17 saga: The Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that President Cyril Ramaphosa did not willfully mislead Parliament when he answered a question about the CR17 campaign funds.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that President Cyril Ramaphosa did not willfully mislead Parliament when he answered a question about the CR17 campaign funds.
The Court also said there was no evidence that the president personally benefited from the donations made to the CR17.
The Constitutional Court said this on Thursday as it handed down its judgment on whether Ramaphosa lied to Parliament with regards to donations made to his campaign for the African National Congress (ANC) President in 2017.
The donations made to the CR17 campaign for presidency, had, for more than three years, cast a shadow on Ramaphosa, particularly on how he emerged victorious at the ANC’s 2017 Nasrec conference.
According to broadcasting channel, SABC, a report by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in July 2019, said that in answering a question in Parliament, Ramaphosa had deliberately misled members of parliament and recommend that he be investigated by the Speaker and the national Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Scathing judgment
The report initiated by complaints to Mkhwebane by then Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, was however, struck down in a scathing judgment by the High Court in Pretoria in March 2020, the report said.
The legal battle centred on a half a million-rand donation to Ramaphosa’s campaign to become ANC president and the Mkhwebane’s finding that as President of South Africa, Ramaphosa had misled Parliament about that donation.
Mkhwebane’s report went further than that, delving into all donations to the campaign totalling well over R200 million according to her, EWN reported.
Mkhwebane was scathing, saying there was merit to the suspicion that money laundering was involved and recommending remedial action.
The high court, however, at the time, found that the public protector had no jurisdiction to investigate the complaints lodged by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane and EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu as well as the CR17 campaign and its donations, IOL reported.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
