South Africa’s presidency said it received a report from the graft ombudsman on its investigation into the theft of foreign-exchange from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s game farm, and reiterated he did nothing wrong.
(Bloomberg) —
South Africa’s presidency said it received a report from the graft ombudsman on its investigation into the theft of foreign-exchange from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s game farm, and reiterated he did nothing wrong.
The Public Protector submitted its preliminary findings to the implicated parties on March 10 and gave them 10 days to respond, according to a statement published on the body’s Twitter handle. It didn’t provide details of the findings.
“We note the report,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said in a statement on Twitter on Saturday. “As stated before, we reiterate that the president did not participate in any wrong doing, nor did he violate the oath of his office. Instead, the president was a victim of a crime that he duly reported to the relevant authorities.”
Ramaphosa, 70, considered resigning in December after an advisory panel found he may have breached the constitution over his handling of the burglary, in which at least $580,000 of cash stashed in sofas at his Phala Phala game farm was stolen. The incident was first revealed in July by former spy boss Arthur Fraser — a detractor of the president — who alleged that the crime wasn’t properly reported.
Earlier this week, South Africa’s revenue authority found that the president and the entities that run his cattle business are tax compliant. The South African central bank is still probing whether he violated foreign-exchange control laws.
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