Cape Town — The Constitutional Court has ruled that President Cyril Ramaphosa did not willfully mislead Parliament with regard to donations made to fund his campaign (CR17) for the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC), IOL reports.
The ruling comes after Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane appealed a Pretoria High Court judgment of March 2020, which set aside Mkhwebane’s decision to probe Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign. The case began in November 2018. Ramaphosa was questioned in Parliament about a R500,000 payment into an account allegedly belonging to his son, Andile Ramaphosa. The payment was reportedly made by Gavin Watson, the late head of Africa Global Operations, the firm formerly known as Bosasa. The firm was found to have secured lucrative government tenders, illegally. Initially Ramaphosa claimed the payment was related to work his son Andile had performed for the company. A week later however, Ramaphosa addressed the speaker of the National Assembly in a letter explaining that the payment was made to fund his CR17 campaign.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane was then tasked to investigate whether Ramaphosa had intentionally misled Parliament. A report by Mkhebane in July 2019 found that the president had breached the Executive Ethics Code by misleading Parliament. Ramaphosa subsequently challenged the report.