PHUTI MOSOMANE
EFF leader Julius Malema has announced that his party has written to the Speaker of Parliament to establish an oversight committee in order to ensure greater accountability, in response to the over-concentration of key functions within the Presidency.
“I don’t appreciate why both black and white we are not alarmed by that, that so many departments get put under one office which has got no oversight committee on it and the President is not prepared to budge on the oversight. Now his office has got no oversight committee, the man is a law unto himself and the sooner we realise that the better for our country,” Malema said.
Malema added the party will continue to ensure that the real story of what happened at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm.
“Phala Phala will never end. We are going to get to the bottom of this. It is just the beginning. Phala Phala will never end, that thing he did to former President Jacob Zuma by taking him to prison has set a precedent. I think he is the next President in office or out of office who will go to prison,” Malema said.
The declaration by SA Revenue Services (SARS) that the $580 000 Phala Phala cash was not declared to revenue services showed that the relationship between Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Ramaphosa was not good.
“Even if they know as long as it’s not in the best interest of Minister Pravin Gordhan, SARS was not going to say, never. By SARS saying that, that guy did not declare the dollars, you don’t need anyone to tell you anything. In Pravin’s language, connect the dots, why would SARS do that,” he said.
Malema added: “It’s by law by the way. No one is allowed to trade using foreign currency. The president has agreed that he has accepted dollars from a person who came to buy buffaloes using foreign currency. How do you pass that one?”
“When he is asked where you get the money from, and he said I sell buffaloes, they say but you’re not allowed to sell using foreign currency.”
Malema said the fact that Ramaphosa openly admitted that “he took foreign currency, why are you not making an issue about it because that is the law.”
“Let’s say he declared the dollars right, let’s say his business is above board, there is nothing wrong, he did everything right, leave him alone, that’s fine, but how do you answer that question that says, the trading currency in South Africa is rands, how do you escape it.”
The African Transformation Movement (ATM) has also called for the establishment of a new portfolio committee to provide oversight for the “unaccounted units, envoys, and spending among other items in the Presidency.”
The Presidency is made up of the President himself, who is the Head of State and Government; the Deputy President, who is the Leader of government business in Parliament, Minister of the Presidency for Monitoring and Evaluation, Minister of Electricity, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, the Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, and two Deputy Ministers in the Presidency, and the Deputy Minister for state security.
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