Johannesburg - The Phala Phala scandal has given citizens more reasons to doubt the capability of the current sitting president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
South Africa gained international media attention when its head of state was tangled in money laundering, undermining the rule of law, and kidnapping allegations. This was after former spy boss Arthur Fraser laid criminal charges against President Ramaphosa and his head of security, General Wally Rhoode, at Rosebank Police station on June 1, 2022.
Fraser alleges that Ramaphosa tried to cover up a robbery at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo, where the alleged robbers helped themselves to an undisclosed amount of American dollars, estimated to be between $4-million to $8 million (approximately between R76.5 and R145.2 million) which was found concealed in the president’s furniture including a couch and a mattress. Fraser also alleges that the president paid the five suspected robbers, all Namibian nationals, R150 000 each to buy their silence over the incident.
South Africans had mixed reactions to Fraser's claims. A deeper look into the response to the farm gate robbery by ordinary South Africans showed a division among themselves. According to various media reports, the suspected thieves gained access to Ramaphosa’s Limpopo game farm on February 9, 2020. Although Ramaphosa denied any criminal conduct in the Phala Phala saga, some experts and citizens expressed their dissatisfaction on social media about the scandal, how it is being treated by the Presidency and the organisations assigned to probe the allegations.
Some people believe that Fraser opened the case because he is bitter that he is no longer a government employee. Fraser was moved from being State Security Agency (SSA) director general to becoming a correctional services commissioner where his contract wasn’t renewed when it ended last September, and many people sympathetic to Ramaphosa have questioned his intentions.
@Bongzmessi said, “this #PhalaPhalaFarmGate has really put every institution looking into it in a difficult position. There is no way of clearing the President without having to overlook certain things, in the process discrediting themselves (as organisations).”
Another user, @MwahafarN, said, “Arthur Fraser has clarified that Cupcake (Ramaphosa) lied about where the money stolen from #PhalaPhala came from. It was not proceed from the game sale (at his farm). It was money illegally brought into the country, hidden in a couch and transported from Johannesburg to the President's farm," referencing Frazer’s statement.
@khanyizama said that Frazer should be hailed as a hero for blowing the whistle.“I don’t think we have thanked Arthur Fraser enough for laying criminal charges against Cyril, had it not been for him, the country would still be in the dark on how it is led by a criminal,” she tweeted.
@bram_hanekom tweeted, “the country is tired of (the) Phala Phala fiction. It is all gossip and lies. Arthur Fraser has not shown evidence. He has not even said where he got the rumours from or if he is the source of the gossip. Putting rumours into an affidavit is not evidence. Shame.”
Several social media users have concluded that Ramaphosa is guilty as charged. At the same time, some say, like any other citizen, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The tug-of-war among citizens on whether the president was guilty or innocent was not enough to prevent opposition parties from calling for an independent body to investigate the Phala Phala misconduct.
To hold Ramaphosa accountable for the Phala Phala farm saga, the EFF, ACDP, IFP, ATM, DA, and NFP held a joint news conference in Houghton in August to recommend that former judges Bernard Ngoepe, Dikgang Moseneke, Yvonne Mokgoro, and Mogoeng Mogoeng should serve as section 89 independent panel that would probe the Phala Phala enquiry.
The panel commenced its investigations on October 19 and is expected to give its findings in 30 days.