President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office says it is unfortunate that Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has failed to properly consider his submissions regarding the Bosasa donation to his presidential campaign. Mkhwebane earlier announced, among other things, in a report that she had referred money-laundering allegations to the NPA to conduct investigations after she found President Ramaphosa deliberately misled Parliament about a 2017 Bosasa donation.
The Presidency says President Ramaphosa submitted a substantial response to Mkhwebane’s preliminary findings in late June saying they were deficient in both fact and law.
Read the full response below:
The President’s spokesperson Khusela Diko explains,“It does not seem that the Public Protector would have given due consideration in the President’s response in her final report. In the interest of transparency, the President has decided to make public the responses he had given to the Public Protector. He will further study the final report and announce action if any that he will take in relation to this matter,” explains Diko.
Watch interview below:
Meanwhile, the African National Congress (ANC) says it will study the report of the Public Protector.
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe,“Where a report is made, such a report will have to be assessed, look at their merits and as an organisation be able to make a proper full informed comment. But South Africans are aware that we in the ANC have never said anything that suggests that we undermine or we are against the powers of the Public Protector. We respect those powers as enshrined in the constitution but where there is a report, reports will have to be studied understood and then the President himself will have to also be given the same space so that if there are issues that he want to address out in the public is accorded that space,” says Mabe.
