Riyaz Patel
President Ramaphosa must personally pay all legal costs, should he pursue that route, in his battle with the Public Protector over a R500,000 donation by Bosasa, says DA Leader Mmusi Maimane.
Following Maimane’s complaint in November 2018, Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebaneis began investigating whether Ramaphosa misled Parliament about the R500 000 ‘donation’ received from Bosasa CEO, Gavin Watson.
With the release of Mkhwebane’s final report into what Maimane dubs “Ramaphosa’s dodgy Bosasa dealings” imminent, reports suggest that the president is preparing to take the report on legal review.
Read: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s response to the Public Protector
“The President has every right to do so. However, South Africans cannot be expected to pay the legal bill for the President to defend himself against allegations of corruption, abuse of power, and money laundering,” Maimane said in a statement.
“I have today approached President Ramaphosa in writing, requesting an undertaking that he will not use any state resources to fund his legal action,” Maimane said.
“No citizen is above the law, including the President,”
“It is our view that the donation was not made to the President as then Deputy President, but rather as a private citizen in pursuit of elected office in the ANC. Similarly, if the Public Protector finds he did mislead the National Assembly, this would have been in respect of his actions as a private citizen,” he added.
Maimane referred to North Gauteng High Court judgement which found that the State Attorney was wrong to cover former President Jacob Zuma’s legal expenses in a matter that was allegedly committed by Zuma in his private capacity.
The DA leader quoted Ramaphosa who spoke on the matter at the time: “It is a fundamental principle that public money should not be used to cover the legal expenses of individuals on strictly personal matters.”
This, Maimane said, provides “President Ramaphosa him with a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to the people of South Africa that he is different to his predecessor by undertaking to pay his own legal fees.”
“No citizen is above the law, including the President,” the DA leader said.
“R500,000; it’s a very low sum and it’s kind of very strange on how it was done.”
Meanwhile, former Bosasa chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi has said he finds the donation made by his former company to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) election campaign “strange.”
“ We saw and put in a test with Hlaudi Motsoeneng; there was R1,2 million. There was another R1,5 million that went to a company that was registered in the North West. So, it’s all very strange the R500,000; it’s a very low sum and it’s kind of very strange on how it was done,” Agrizzi told radio station 702.
