The High court in Pretoria will on Tuesday hand down judgment in the case brought by President Cyril Ramaphosa, for a judicial review of public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report into the funding of his 2017 African National Congress (ANC) presidential election campaign.
Ramaphosa applied to the high court to have Mkhwebane’s report overturned and declared unlawful.
In her report, Mkhwebane found that Ramaphosa had misled parliament‚ violated the executive ethics code and acted inconsistently with his office in relation to R500 000 donated in 2017, by the late Bosasa boss Gavin Watson to Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential (CR17) campaign.
Mkhwebane also found prima facie evidence of money laundering in the more than R400-million donated to the campaign. The main pillars of Ramaphosa’s defence are that he did not know about the R500 000 donation, and that Mkhwebane does not have jurisdiction to investigate donations made to a private political campaign.
Video | President Cyril Ramaphosa’s lawyers says his family never benefitted financially from his CR17 ANC presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe says the party fully supports Ramaphosa and Chapter Nine Institutions.
“The ANC has got confidence in all Chapter Nine Institutions and we have expressed that in all our statements and we have got confidence in our President Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC and the Republic, who is elected to lead the country and lead the organisation and we believe that it must be all hands on deck so we be able to drive that programme further forward.”
In video below analysts discuss how Ramaphosa vs Mkhwebane may be used in factional battles
