Johannesburg
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday that he will not resign, despite calls for him to quit after the Constitutional Court ruled last week that parliament had violated the constitution by blocking moves to impeach him in 2022.
“While there have been calls in some circles that I should resign, nothing in the Constitutional Court’s judgment compels me to resign my office,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address to the nation.
In 2022, an independent panel appointed by the National Assembly found that Ramaphosa may be guilty of serious misconduct in relation to the theft of money at his game farm.
In 2020, burglars stole $580,000 in cash that was hidden in a sofa at Ramaphosa’s rural farm, but he did not report the matter to the police.
Critics accused Ramaphosa of money laundering and demanded to know the source of the funds.
Ramaphosa denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the money stolen from his farm came from “proceeds from the sale of game.”
“I have never stolen taxpayers’ money. I want to reaffirm that I was not involved in any criminal conduct,” he said at the time.
Last Friday’s judgement by the Constitutional Court declared that the recommendations of the independent panel report must be implemented through a referral to an impeachment committee of parliament “unless and until the report is set aside on review.”
The court ruled that the National Assembly had acted illegally when it voted against the adoption of the panel report, which found that the president had a prima facie case to answer in relation to the farm theft case.
However, Ramaphosa said he has decided to proceed by taking the independent panel’s report on review on an expeditious basis to stop it from heading to the impeachment committee of parliament.
“I do so not out of disrespect for parliament or its processes but to affirm the need for such findings to be correct in law and in fact, especially where parliament’s work would be based on and informed by a report I believe is flawed,” he said.
