President Cyril Ramaphosa has denied there were dirty dollars on his Phala Phala farm, and urged parliamentarians to wait for investigations to be concluded by various state agencies before reaching such conclusions.
Ramaphosa told Parliament on Thursday that he had never done anything wrong. He said he had been co-operating with agencies investigating the theft of the money from his farm.
Ramaphosa, who was answering oral questions in the National Council of Provinces, called on parliamentarians to refrain from drawing conclusions on the matter, as investigations had not yet been concluded.
This was after opposition members said Ramaphosa was contributing to the grey-listing of the country, as he had not come clean on what happened to the $582 000 (R10.38 million) on his farm.
“The processes that are under way are involving a number of agencies and institutions to look at the matter that you are referring to. I think we should wait for that process to be concluded. I have publicly said I am willing and prepared to co-operate, and have done so, and some of those institutions have even said so. Let us wait for that whole process to be done with and to be concluded before we reach a conclusion that you are alluding to,” said Ramaphosa.
He pointed out that a number of measures had been taken to address issues raised by the Financial Action Task Force.
He said some of the issues had already been addressed by the government when they were raised in the past by the financial body.
The country should get the all-clear in the next six months after it had dealt with the concerns raised by the task force.
Ramaphosa denied there were dirty dollars stashed on his farm.
“I continue to say there are no dirty dollars, and I have said in various statements that this has been a result of a transaction. As a farmer that I am, I have sold game, and that process has been thoroughly looked at. I think having opened myself to co-operate with those institutions, we should wait until all those institutions come to a conclusion,” said Ramaphosa.
