South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is playing his way to the helm of the country in the coming months, was weakened this week by accusations that he had bought the silence of burglars who fell on crazy sums of cash in one of its properties.
His office issued a statement on Saturday evening to try to convince that in “despite the interest and concern of the public” around this affair, the president remained “firmly focused on the task of rebuilding the economy and the country”.
Mr. Ramaphosa, 69, who succeeded President Jacob Zuma in 2018 mired in a series of corruption scandals, “reaffirms that he is not involved in any criminal conduct”.
The president, at the head of a substantial personal fortune and expected in the fight against corruption, undertakes “once again” to cooperate “fully” in any investigation. But the presidency warns that it will “not be able” to go into the details of the case, leaving the police and justice to do their job.
It all started in February 2020, according to the complaint filed Wednesday in a Johannesburg police station by former South African intelligence chief Arthur Fraser.
Burglars break into a farm belonging to Mr. Ramaphosa in the northeast of the country, where they find the equivalent of nearly 3.8 million euros in cash, hidden in furniture.
The complaint accuses Mr. Ramaphosa of having concealed this burglary from the police and this money from the tax authorities. She also claims that the president would then have “paid” the burglars “for their silence”.
Mr. Fraser, who says he provided the police with “photos, bank accounts, names and videos”, accuses Mr. Ramaphosa of “obstructing justice” and of having organized “the kidnapping of the suspects, their interrogation in his property and their corruption”.
– Fragile within the ANC –
Thursday, the presidency had confirmed “an armed robbery” in the animal reserve of Limpopo (north-east) of Mr. Ramaphosa, “during which the product of the sale of cattle was stolen”. The president, who was attending an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, was not present at the time.
“After being informed of the theft”, Mr. Ramaphosa reported the incident to the head of the police presidential protection unit, for investigation”, detailed the presidency.
In the early 2000s, after a past as a mobilizing trade unionist against the hated apartheid regime, Ramaphosa, considered “the favorite son” of Nelson Mandela before being dismissed from his succession at the head of the ANC, left politics to become a formidable businessman.
This ambitious man, from a modest background in Soweto, ranked 42nd in 2015 on the Forbes list of the greatest fortunes in Africa, with nearly 400 million euros. He then developed an expensive hobby of raising rare cattle and owned several farms.
The African National Congress (ANC) must decide by December whether or not to retain Mr Ramaphosa as president in 2024.
“It’s not going to be easy,” political analyst Rebone Tau told AFP. “Ramaphosa is struggling to consolidate his power within the ANC” and this latest affair is already “a problem for Cyril”, as many South Africans call him familiarly.
“Is he still popular?” asks Mr. Tau, a former ANC youth activist. Nothing less certain, while unemployment remains high, prices at the pump are soaring and the country has so many economic challenges to meet.
If his predecessors, Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma, had easily won a second term, the ANC fell below 50% for the first time in the 2021 local elections. “by Cyril Ramaphosa, warns Rebone Tau.