Ramaphosa meets Mkhwebane over Bosasa campaign donation
DURBAN – President Cyril Ramaphosa is meeting with Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane on Tuesday afternoon in Pretoria where he’s expected to clarify whether he deliberately misled Parliament about donations made to his African National Congress presidential campaign.
After initially telling Parliament that the R500,000 donation was paid in a business transaction to his son by Bosasa was above board, he had to backtrack.
Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane then filed a complaint with Mkhwebane’s office, asking her to look into whether the president had violated the Executive Ethics Code.
During a question and answer session in Parliament last year, Ramaphosa denied ever personally receiving money from Bosasa, which has now rebranded as African Global Operations.
At the time, Ramaphosa said instead it was his son Andile who had a contract with the logistics and management company and that he had personally seen the working agreement.
But both the president’s son and Bosasa swiftly denied this.
A few days later, Ramaphosa wrote to National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete clarifying that in fact it was money which went towards a trust fund set up for his presidential campaign and he had no knowledge of this.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Khusela Diko says the president will clarify all issues during his meeting with the public protector.
“He is going to repeat exactly what is in the public domain because that was the corrective action that he would have taken when he realized the error he had made.”
Diko says it was Ramaphosa who initiated Tuesday’s meeting.
Bosasa has been thrust into the spotlight at the state capture commission of inquiry. The company’s former COO Angelo Agrizzi detailed how massive amounts of money were paid to high profile officials in exchange for favors in government.