A NAMIBIAN national named in an affidavit as having taken part in a robbery at a game farm owned by President Cyril Ramaphosa, has denied involvement, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times reported.
Erkki Shikongo — one of five people accused by South Africa’s former spy boss, Arthur Fraser — said he’d never heard of the claims about his alleged involvement in the 2020 theft at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm, the paper said.
The first Shikongo said he was made aware was when Fraser laid criminal charges against the president about two weeks ago, according to the Sunday Times.
Fraser said in legal filings that Ramaphosa concealed the theft of $4 million or more from his farm in the northern Limpopo province in February 2020, and that the suspects he named were illegally detained and interrogated.
On June 2, Ramaphosa’s office confirmed the robbery took place and said he reported the matter to the head of the Presidential Protection Unit of the South African Police Service for investigation.
The president has denied any wrongdoing and said the amount taken was much less than Fraser claimed.
The allegations against Ramaphosa come just months before he bids to win another five-year term as party leader at the African National Congress’s elective conference in December.
BLOOMBERG
