Ramaphosa denies involvement in game farm theft probe

President Cyril Ramaphosa has denied any involvement in unauthorised investigations related to the 2020 theft at his Phala Phala Game Reserve. The 2023 Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) report revealed explosive details into the so-called Phala Phala farmgate scandal. It found that the head of Ramaphosa’s police security unit, Major General Wally Rhoode, deliberately concealed the theft of millions of rands worth of US dollars from the President’s Phala Phala game farm. IoL reports that it said Ramaphosa informed Rhoode in 2020 about a break-in at his Phala Phala farm and the subsequent theft of $580 000 in cash. However, a case number for the matter was only registered with the police two years later, after it was publicly exposed by former State Security Agency DG Arthur Fraser. Speaking to the media during his visit to Eskom’s Kusile Power Station on Friday, Ramaphosa said the alleged cover-up in relation to the robbery at his Phala Phala farm had nothing to do with him. ‘The Ipid report is what you would have read. I had nothing to do with it. So, that is a process, as I’ve always said, processes must play themselves out, and all these matters are being handled by the right institutions, and we must allow those institutions to handle those matters.’

Also on Friday, opposition party ATM wrote to Speaker Thoko Didiza, asking her to institute Section 89 impeachment proceedings against Ramaphosa following the release of the report. ActionSA has also indicated that its commitment to get to the bottom of the scandal involving a large sum of dollars stolen from a couch in Ramaphosa’s game farm has been renewed. Both parties had been chasing Ipid to get the report, which was initially classified ‘top secret’. News24’s investigations team, following an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, received a copy of the since-declassified report on Thursday. Ipid found that Rhoode’s attempts to track the alleged couch-crackers and dollar thieves, were meant to ‘conceal’ crimes. It recommended disciplinary steps against Rhoode and another officer, Constable HH Rekhoto, but a subsequent police investigation cleared Rhoode. In his letter to the Speaker, ATM’s Vuyo Zungula reminded Didiza of the findings of the independent panel that Parliament established as part of the Section 89 process that found prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa had a case to answer.

Zungula also brought the previous impeachment motion against Ramaphosa. ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said the party’s parliamentary team is writing to the Portfolio Committees on the Presidency and Police to institute an urgent inquiry into the failure to comply with the recommendations of the Ipid report, as well as the apparent abuse of executive authority due to Ramaphosa’s apparent failure to act against Rhoode. Beaumont said: ‘This failure, in the case of the President, is compounded by reports that his name was repeatedly invoked during the investigation to deter scrutiny of its irregular nature.’ According to News24, the Economic Freedom Fighters challenged challenged in the Constitutional Court the National Assembly decision to reject the impeachment bid. Last week, the apex court indicated that the long-delayed ruling would be handed down within a month.