Cape Town - Pressure was mounting on President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday to step down or resign after the Section 89 panel report on the Phala Phala farm housebreaking and theft scandal made adverse findings against him.
This came as Ramaphosa cancelled his planned appearance before the national Council of Provinces (NCOP) to answer oral questions on Thursday, citing the need to study the panel’s report.
Opposition parties represented in Parliament said the findings of the panel’s report were enough for the embattled president to resign.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said there was further need for Parliament to interrogate the matter given the panel’s recommendations.
“The balance of probabilities is sufficient; nothing more needs to be proved.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa would be well advised to leave his office without any further prompting,” Holomisa said.
He said South Africa could not afford a situation where the nation and the world focused on his misdeeds.
“The ANC must recall their deployee and the law enforcement agencies must follow up on the recommendations of the panel,” Holomisa said.
The EFF said Ramaphosa had absconded from facing the MPs, because he knew the panel’s findings had exposed him as a “gangster and mafia president” when he snubbed the NCOP’s oral question session.
Spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said the president not only violated the Constitution, but spat in the faces of South Africans.
“The EFF cautions Ramaphosa and advises him that he cannot hide forever. His best course of action remains immediate resignation because he will never know peace in any sitting of Parliament,” Thambo said.
Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald said the findings of the Section 89 panel that there was sufficient prima facie evidence to impeach Ramaphosa left him with no other choice but to step down immediately.
“The findings leave no room for doubt that various criminal offences were possibly committed, and it brings into disrepute both the Office of the Presidency and the office of the President,” Groenewald said.
NFP MP Munzoor Shaik Emam said South Africa could not afford another president with criminal charges hanging over his head.
“The NFP calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately step aside or face impeachment, following the damning findings by an independent panel investigating the Phala Phala farm scandal,” Shaik Emam said.
But Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said this was not the first time a call had been made for Ramaphosa to step aside.
“It’s been on going. To us it is not new,” he said at a post-Cabinet briefing.
He said Ramaphosa had respected the country’s laws and had subjected himself to the processes investigating the Phala Phala saga.
“We have not seen anything untoward as far as laws of this country are concerned,” he said.
Gungubele downplayed the finding by the panel that Ramaphosa had a case to answer, as “prima facie” meant inconclusive.
“Prima facie is not a conclusive finding, but is an indication that there’s a need to clarify certain things,” he said.
Meanwhile, the DA has called for early elections, with its leader John Steenhuisen saying Section 50(1) of the Constitution made provision for the scenario where the president and his government had lost the mandate and legitimacy to govern, and a new mandate must be obtained from the people.
I will table this motion in the National Assembly, and I will call on all members of the House, regardless of party or affiliation, to support it so that we can urgently close this chapter of corruption and get back to dealing with our country’s many challenges,” he said.
Cape Times