Hawks deny slowdown in CR17 campaign emails investigation

The Hawks have denied a report that their investigations into a number of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s private emails between him and his advisors relating to the CR17 campaign have slowed down.

The report says one of Ramaphosa’s advisors requested the Hawks to wait until his judicial review of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report on the late BOSASA CEO Gavin Watson’s R500 000 donation to the CR17 campaign was finalised.

Mkhwebane found that Ramaphosa breached his oath of office by misleading Parliament about the source of the donation and she referred the money laundering allegations to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Ramaphosa and Mkhwebane are now in a legal tussle over the matter which will be heard in the High Court in Pretoria later in 2020.

Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi has described the report as surprising.

“The report you know comes as a surprise due to the fact that our engagement with the advisor in December last year (2019). The question that was asked was whether the investigations are still on-going and we did confirm that the investigations are on-going and we only account to the complainant who is the President in this regard. So when this report came out, we were shocked as well to find that now all of a sudden there are people that have been mentioned who are actually giving us instructions as a law enforcement agency on how to do our work.”