President Cyril Ramaphosa
- President Cyril Ramaphosa has approached the ANC’s integrity committee to account for the controversy around the CR17 campaign.
- He told the party’s national executive committee (NEC) he is prepared to subject himself to the party’s processes.
- This appeared to disarm Ramaphosa’s detractors in the NEC as the party’s top brass deliberated on corruption.
In a move that seemingly disarmed his most vocal opponents, President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) he had approached the integrity committee to account for his CR17 campaign.
Ramaphosa preemptively approached the integrity committee last week asking them for a chance to explain his controversial campaign that received more than R400 million in donations.
In the NEC meeting on Friday, Ramaphosa said he wanted it to guide how the party should approach leadership contests.
Sources in the meeting said this set the tone for the meeting and was consistent with the president’s push that all those who are charged with corruption should step down.
A party insider added:
The president said he wants to appear before them and that everyone who has something over their head must go and present their case. This puts an end to all the sideshows.
Ramaphosa’s move to deal with corruption in the party was met with resistance from his opponents who pointed at his CR17 campaign.
READ| Ramaphosa sticks to his guns as spark is lit for him to resign
His political nemeses, who come together under the “radical economic transformation” banner, lobbied that Ramaphosa cannot talk about corruption if he does not answer to allegations that he used “white monopoly capital” funds to buy votes at the party’s Nasrec conference.
This move was intensified by a strongly worded letter penned by former president Jacob Zuma to Ramaphosa on Friday in which he lashed out at Ramaphosa’s open letter to party members bemoaning corruption in the party.
“Mr President, it appears that it has become your hallmark since our 54th national conference to divert accusations from yourself rather than to face them and clear your name.
“Mr President, you currently stand accused of having received almost R1 billion in donations from white monopoly capital, just to win an internal ANC contest,” Zuma wrote in his letter to Ramaphosa.
He did not pull any punches in the now widely circulated letter, saying unless Ramaphosa and the NEC came clean on how he was elected, his letters would be “construed as your attempts to appease those who, by their ill-gotten riches, catapulted you into the position you hold in our movement”.
“We all know that such donations amounted to sacrificing the historic mission of the ANC for 30 pieces of silver,” Zuma said.
Implicated
News24 reported Ramaphosa stuck to his guns that society perceived the party as corrupt and that churches would be uncomfortable with campaigning for the ANC in the upcoming elections.
Ramaphosa wants the NEC to resolve that all those charged with corruption must step aside.
Sources said Ramaphosa’s bid to stamp out corruption in its ranks was widely endorsed during discussions on Saturday.
Despite a call by ANC NEC member Tony Yengeni for Ramaphosa to lead by example and himself resign because of the accusations around the CR17 campaign in an earlier national working committee meeting, the call was not repeated in the NEC.
NEC insiders said discussion on Saturday focused on formulating a code of ethics that would guide party leaders whose kids were doing business with the state.
The NEC received reports from its provincial structures on efforts to deal with those implicated in corruption, including a list on who should step aside.
A similar list for national leaders charged with corruption was not formulated but the sources said there were calls for the NEC to create a list and then determine who should step aside.
Sources said there were calls from NEC members for them to clarify how the integrity committee would be expected to do its work.
The NEC is further due to discuss the 2021 local government elections on Sunday.
They are also due to receive an update on its discussion documents for its national general council which was meant to take place in October but postponed indefinitely due to Covid-19.
