Riyaz Patel
Deputy State Security Minister Zizi Kodwa said he does not need to explain why Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential campaign paid him R50,000 almost two years after the governing party’s Nasrec conference.
Kodwa, who is also a member of the ANC’s national executive committee, confirmed he received the money from a bank account linked to Ramaphosa’s campaign, but said the payment was not linked to the CR17 campaign.
A weekend report by City Press alleges that Kodwa and the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula also received payment from Ramaphosa’s campaign for the ANC presidency.
The publication also claims that there was a third recipient, a man by the name Jabu Mchunu, who was also paid on the same date as Mbalula and Kodwa.
When Kodwa received the R50,000, he was the head of the Presidency at Luthuli House, a year after Ramaphosa was elected president.
Speaking on PowerFM, he insisted that the payment had nothing to do with Ramaphosa’s presidential race.
“CR17 was in 2017. It was a campaign to elect President Ramaphosa a campaign which I have no regrets about,” Kodwa said
“What is reported in the media is money which was allegedly deposited to me in 2019. There would be no relevance in 2019 when he was elected in 2017. Because there was no conference in 2019,” Kodwa told the radio station.
“The question you are trying to link is whether the R50,000 was to buy my conscious decision to support Ramaphosa in 2017, it’s not possible,” Kodwa said.
He said he had nothing to explain.“Unless there is anything illegal about it,” he added.
Kodwa conceded though that the use of money at conferences was a problem in the ANC.
“What is relevant is that in the contestation in the intra-party there was no regulation and we are saying as a party there should be a regulation within which an open contestation is allowed and the use of money must be in the context of the regulation.”
He said the ANC was in the process of reviewing its processes around how presidents were elected.
This as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) confirmed over the weekend that one of its MPS also benefited from the CR17 campaign.
It was yet another weekend of headlines around Ramaphosa after further alleged financial details of the CR17 campaign were detailed in Sunday newspapers and leaked on social media.
The leaks came just days after North Gauteng High Court deputy judge president Aubrey Ledwaba ruled the information be sealed.
President Ramaphosa had argued that the documents were illegally obtained.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane had found that the president, in responding to a parliamentary question by Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane, deliberately lied to Parliament regarding Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson’s R500 000 donation to his campaign.
On Thursday, Mkhwebane submitted records of her probe to the court as part of Ramaphosa’s review application, but Ramaphosa successfully petitioned Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba to keep some parts sealed.
Ramaphosa and the CR17 campign managers have questioned whether the documents had been obtained lawfully.
Oupa Segalwe, the spokesperson for the Public Protector, said that Ledwaba’s reasoning for sealing the documents was that “the donors would be prejudiced.”
Segalwe said Ledwaba rejected Mkhwebane’s argument that public interest demanded that all parts of the record should not be kept secret.
Her lawyers contested that the public had a right to know who gave Ramaphosa the money.
Mkhwebane’s legal team also argued that “there were no legitimate grounds for Ramaphosa’s request to seal the records,”according to Segalwe.
He said the request “was premised in insinuations that the information was obtained unlawfully, but no piece of evidence was produced to back this claim up.”
Mkhwebane’s lawyers further questioned why Ramaphosa appeared to be representing third parties (the donors), “none of whom indicated their opposition to having the record made public through rule 53 of the Uniform Rules of Court.”
Segalwe said Mkhwebane acquired the CR17 campaign’s bank statements through the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), which has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Office of the Public Protector.
“Sharing of information to further the mandates of each of the institutions is covered under this MOU,” he said, adding that the process involved a written request and a response from the FIC to obtain the information in question.
Meanwhile, freelance journalist Oliver Meth has also come forward, saying he too received payment for consultancy work done around the CR17 campaign.
