A long-awaited report on an alleged corruption scandal targeted at South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a month before a crucial deadline for his political future, will be examined on December 6, the parliament announced Thursday.
An independent parliamentary committee was tasked in September with examining President Ramaphosa’s accountability in the 2020 case and issuing findings that could lead to a possible vote for his impeachment.
“The parliamentary committee met this morning. The date for the submission of the report was extended to November 30. It was decided that the National Assembly would examine this report on December 6,” ten days before the congress of the historic ruling party, the ANC, parliamentary spokesman Moloto Mothapo told AFP.
The parliamentary recess that was supposed to start on December 1 has been postponed to consider the report, which was originally due by Thursday.
The African National Congress (ANC) must meet from December 16 to choose whether or not to invest Mr. Ramaphosa’s candidate for a second term in the presidential election of 2024, re-electing him president of the party.
The successor to Jacob Zuma, who was forced to resign in 2018 after a series of scandals, the current president is expected to tackle the corruption front that he has vowed to eradicate.
According to a complaint filed in June by former South African intelligence chief Arthur Fraser, burglars broke into a farm owned by the president in Phala Phala, in the country’s northeast, in February 2020. They found large sums of money in cash.
Cyril Ramaphosa is accused of concealing the robbery from the police and the money from the tax authorities, organizing the kidnapping and interrogation of the robbers, and then bribing them to keep quiet.
The President, who was repeatedly attacked on the subject during heated sessions in the Assembly, denied the accusations, questioning the amounts mentioned and maintaining that the money found was in fact from the sale of livestock. He also denounced the political aims of his opponents.
In South Africa, the impeachment of the head of state is subject to a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly. The ANC led by Cyril Ramaphosa holds more than two-thirds of the seats.
