“You are the Maumela who is putting my name into disrepute,” President Cyril Ramaphosa told controversial businessman Hangwani Maumela during their first interaction outside the now infamous Sandhurst home.
Ramaphosa recounted the incident during his parliamentary question-and-answer session in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Tuesday.
Ramaphosa said he was walking past the businessman’s home during his morning exercise routine and informed members of the NCOP.
The president has been under pressure to explain the nature of their relationship.
So during the session, he recounted two instances when the two bumped into each other in the street.
Chance encounters with Maumela
Ramaphosa said these interactions with the controversial tenderpreneur have been limited to informal, chance encounters.
“I was walking on that same street when a person came out of the house and greeted me. As I often do, I asked, ‘Who are you?’ He replied, ‘I am Hangwani Maumela.’ I said, ‘You are the Maumela who is putting my name into disrepute,’ and he just smiled. That was the extent of the interaction. I walked away,” said the president.
The other interaction occurred in December 2024 as Ramaphosa walked past with his daughter, and Maumela greeted him outside his home. He then mentioned that his mother, whom the president has admitted to being acquainted with from their school days in Soweto, was inside and also wanted to greet him.
“I know his mother because we went to school together. She came out wearing a morning gown, and I immediately said I couldn’t allow her to come into the street. So I walked towards the gate to greet her, and that was the sum of it,” Ramaphosa explained.
The president said he saw nothing wrong with the interactions but was appalled when he later found out that Maumela is linked to the Tembisa hospital scandal.
Money allegedly not properly acquired
“As I walk past that house, I know that that house was built with the money, as it is alleged, was not properly acquired. And it is money that should have been spent on the health of our people,” said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa emphasised that, aside from these two brief encounters, he does not know Maumela personally, despite a distant family connection that dates back more than four decades.
“Forty-seven years ago, I married his father’s sister, his aunt, and we divorced 43 years ago. When Honourable Steenhuisen asked in 2022 whether I knew him, I responded that I did not, had never communicated with him, and that was the gospel truth,” Ramaphosa said.
The president also addressed a widely circulated photograph showing him with Metro FM radio personality Thabo “Tbo Touch” Molefe and his former advisor, Jomo Sibiya, standing outside what was alleged to be Maumela’s home in 2023.
Ramaphosa had seen house under construction
“I was walking with Mr Sibiya, and we passed a house I had seen under construction for some time. I kept asking whose house it was. It’s a massive house, but I never got an answer. The allegation is that the person in the photo was Maumela. It was not. “It was Mr Tbo Touch and Mr Jones from the US, as I later learnt,” he clarified.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) recently obtained a preservation order for R900 million worth of Maumela’s assets. Last Thursday, it seized assets valued at approximately R133.5 million during a raid.
Queenin Masuabi
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