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Cyril Ramaphosa’s camp not paying back Bosasa yet

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Cyril Ramaphosa
Cyril Ramaphosa

Bosasa will not get its R500 000 funding for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC election campaign repaid unless the authorities said so, according to a letter that Ramaphosa’s campaign team has written to company CEO Gavin Watson.

The lobby group, which coordinated Ramaphosa’s election campaign as ANC president in December 2017 in Nasrec, Johannesburg, cleared him of all knowledge regarding the funds.

“You may be aware that President Ramaphosa expressly instructed his campaign managers to not reveal to him the identity of his campaign donors, and left the issue of fundraising to his campaign managers.”

Ramaphosa “did not want to know who the donors were, as he did not want to feel under obligation to them in any shape or form at any time in the future”.

However, the opposition DA and EFF parties were not buying the explanation.

The DA on Friday threatened to take legal action, while the EFF last week said that the state of the nation address on Thursday would not proceed until Ramaphosa came clean.

The Ramaphosa team told Watson that contributions from donors were also accepted on the understanding that the donors were motivated by their support of Ramaphosa’s vision for the ANC and the country.

“However, subsequent public allegations, including testimony pertaining to Bosasa and those associated with Bosasa, before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, have raised concerns about the source of the money that comprised your donation.”

The team said that Ramaphosa’s vision for South Africa was “in stark contrast to the content of allegations made at the Zondo Commission [hearings] concerning the conduct of Bosasa, and those associated with the company”.

The team said that, although the allegations against Bosasa were yet to be tested either in court or by the Zondo Commission, a decision had been made to pay the funds into an attorney’s trust account until the state capture investigations were finalised.

“Thereafter, a decision will be made as to whether these monies should be returned to the account from where they came, passed on to appropriate government authorities or donated to a charity or a nongovernmental organisation”.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane said on Friday that he had filed Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) requests to Ramaphosa, his son Andile Ramaphosa and Bosasa, now known as African Global Operations (AGO).

Maimane said he was not persuaded by the response he received from Forensics for Justice founder Paul O’Sullivan, describing it as “simply not true and a spin”.

Maimane demanded a full explanation of the terms and conditions of the agreement between Bosasa (AGO) and Andile Ramaphosa’s Blue Crane Capital (Blue Crane) which the DA’s lawyers would be approaching the courts for relief over.

Maimane said commercial sensitivity was a smokescreen manipulated by presidents and their sons to cover up dirty deals, making it “a dishonest legal loophole being abused over an agreement that the president said he has seen, believed was above board and which I have since requested through a Paia”.

“With the monthly retainer paid to Ramaphosa junior by AGO redacted from the agreement, it is high time that President Ramaphosa plays open cards with the people of South Africa by disclosing the invoices [showing] how much his son has been paid per month on retainer by Bosasa”.

Maimane said former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi’s devastating testimony made it clear that all Bosasa contracts with the state were tainted by bribery and corruption. Therefore the onus was on Ramaphosa and his son to prove that this agreement was not tainted by bribery and corruption.

“It is the height of hypocrisy and double standards for the business relationship between the president, his son’s company and Bosasa to be ‘assumed’ to be any different to all other ANC government contracts with Bosasa.”

EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee said the party would give Ramaphosa time to come clean publicly, but come the state of the nation address this week he would have to give answers on the spot.

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