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President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Simphiwe Nkwali, Gallo Images
- President Cyril Ramaphosa has been accused of wrongdoing for having used campaign funds to “buy votes” at the party’s 2017 Nasrec election conference.
- In an interview on Power FM on Friday morning, he admitted that he should not have asked for his case to be postponed before the ANC’s integrity commission.
- In March last year, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria overturned the Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s findings that the CR17 campaign bank accounts should be made public.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted that he should not have asked for his case to be postponed before the ANC’s integrity commission.
“In hindsight, he should have been going there on a preliminary basis,” Ramaphosa told Lukhona Mnguni during an interview on Power FM on Friday morning.
Ramaphosa said, “I thought at the time this matter was so murky and this matter had become so loaded with many cases and many reports …”, that he wanted the courts to clear it up first so that there would not be different stories out there.
Ramaphosa has been accused of wrongdoing for having used campaign funds to “buy votes” at the party’s 2017 Nasrec conference.
In March last year, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria overturned the findings of public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane that the bank accounts of the CR17 campaign should be made public, saying that it had acted illegally, recklessly and without jurisdiction. The matter was taken to the Constitutional Court in November and is pending judgment.
He was asked whether he would admit that his request for postponement meant that others could not be prevented from requesting postponements of their hearings in front of the integrity commission until their cases were heard.
READ HERE | Ramaphosa: the ANC integrity commission was right to punish me
Ramaphosa replied, “I suppose it is a valid point, I will not run away from it. It is a valid point and a valid concern and we have to deal with that,” he said, in case a postponement of the matter negatively affects the commission of integrity. job.
Ramaphosa also acknowledged that it would be in the interest of transparency to accept the opening of bank records, but added: “I am not in control of that.” He said it was a matter for the court to decide.
In response to a question about what happened to a clause that was inserted into the party’s constitution at its 2007 Polokwane conference that prohibited members from collecting funds to influence the outcome of a meeting, Ramaphosa said the clause “just disappeared “as was the constitution”. redone “after the debates of the corresponding commission in a later conference.
“I don’t think it was deliberate,” he added.
When asked if he thought his campaign might have violated that clause, Ramaphosa said: “I would say that depends on what the funds were used for. If they were used to buy votes, it definitely is. If the funds were used to participate. In the process of allowing people to attend meetings, what we would argue was the case, to hire venues, to travel, I would say that is a completely different use of funds. “
READ | Ramaphosa Denies ANC Integrity Commission Claim That He Eluded It For 18 Months
He said it was important to make that distinction because there were a number of things his campaign paid for, like hiring venues, transportation, and T-shirts. He said that accountability was important and that any ANC regulations around campaigns should provide adequate audits.
He said, “… every rand and penny” used by your campaign must be accounted for.
READ ALSO | ANC integrity commission annoys Ramaphosa and passes the ball to the party’s disciplinary committee
Ramaphosa said that his letter in response to the integrity commission that reprimanded him for requesting a postponement of his hearing referred to the “process” and not the substance of the complaint against him.
In the letter, dated December 22, Ramaphosa regretted that the commission’s report on his November hearing presented him as a “delinquent.”
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