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Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has for the first time accused two EFF MPs who received money from President Cyril Ramaphosa of lying about when they received the money and what the money was to be used for.
Both Tebogo Mokwele and Nkagisang Mokgosi had to quit their positions as MPs last month after the EFF discovered that they had received money from the CR17 account, following the leak of Ramaphosa’s records as a result of the Public Protector’s investigation.
Mokwele and Mokgosi released their resignation letters at the time, admitting that they had accepted the money from Ramaphosa.
At the time, the EFF cordially accepted their resignations and refrained from casting aspersions on their behaviour.
EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu accepted the resignations, saying they represented “superior levels of political discipline, and they accept objective and subjective wrongdoing and step aside for the sake of the organisation”.
However, on Monday night during an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Malema questioned the timing of the deposits, stating that the funeral happened in April but Ramaphosa had already started sending money to Mokwele from 2017.
Malema said: “A person in the EFF says he [Ramaphosa] gave me money because I had a funeral in April. My aunt was shot with her husband and they both died, I sent messages to everyone, Ramaphosa responded and said “give me the account number and I did exactly that in April”.
Malema said even after he asked for the truth, he was told lies.
Read: 'They did nothing wrong': Ramaphosa on CR17 payments to politicians
“The second one says my child was sick, we [the EFF] know the situation, and we helped her, taking her child to the best hospitals but she received the money in 2017 and still received money from the president this year,” he said.
Malema said both were not honest when he asked them when they received the money from Ramaphosa.
“Imagine if a member of the ANC had to receive money from me, he would be dealt with accordingly. If we don’t act now against people who took money from Ramaphosa, thay are going to take money from Ace Magashule and Ace is not your favourite, he will come back very hard,” Malema said.
During the inteview the EFF leader added that Ramaphosa bought everyone because of his billionaire status.
“That’s the problem with entrusting a billionaire with holding a public office because he is going to buy everyone. He bought them in the media, in the legal fraternity, we are waiting to see it in the judiciary and bought them in the EFF,” he said.
For Malema this incident was seen as ill-discipline. He explained that he understood that that was the art of war used by many political formations.
“Parties try by all means including the EFF to check what is happening in other political formations and how you can counter that. It’s a simple lesson of art of war, you ought to know the strength of your enemy in order to be ahead of them and I think that the president was trying that or his political party was,” Malema said.
Mokwele told City Press on Tuesday that she believed everything Malema said in the interview to be correct and could not comment or counter what he said.
“Malema is my president and whatever he says is true and correct, so whatever he said last night, I accept, I cannot comment or counter the statement,” Mokwele said.
