The ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) is too divided to discuss honestly and provide appropriate leadership on the Phala Phala saga engulfing President Cyril Ramaphosa.
This is one of the main conclusions reached by the ruling party’s integrity commission in its investigation into millions of US dollars that were stolen at the president’s farm in Limpopo in February 2020.
In a progress report, the commission said although the scandal had brought the ruling party into disrepute, it cannot conclude that Ramaphosa is implicated and therefore should step aside.
The commission, led by ANC veteran George Mashamba, recommended that Ramaphosa should rather take the party’s NEC and the nation into confidence about what happened during the burglary at his farm.
“Recommendations on this issue have had to be considered in the context of the reality we face of a factionalised, weak and divided organisation, an organisation that is perceived to have betrayed its basic principles of serving the people with integrity and honesty,” says the report.
“The issue of Phala Phala, given the continuing intensification of rivalry, especially among the leadership of the ANC, suggests that the NEC may not be able to fairly and honestly reflect on this issue and provide appropriate leadership thereof.”
The commission further said the matter is a “very complex and difficult one” and that given that Ramaphosa has stuck to his story that the issue is subject of processes, the structure found it hard to determine the cause of what has brought the ANC into disrepute.
The factions and the rivalry in the ANC is growing from strength to strength, the commission said, adding the ANC is its worst enemy, undermining its renewal process.
“Since the extent of the factions reaches right down to branch level, the initiative for organisational renewal will only reap results when the NEC has the courage to focus on itself and not only on the general membership, as should leadership at all levels.
“The integrity commission finds that while the Phala Phala incident and events around it have definitely brought the ANC into disrepute, at this stage it is not possible to determine individuals’ responsibilities in bringing the ANC into disrepute.”
Ramaphosa has fallen short of blaming his head of security, Wally Rhoode, for the Phala Phala mess. He has told parliament that he reported the matter to Rhoode with the hope that as a senior member of the police, he would know what to do.
Sunday World reported that Rhoode has been charged for failing to report the matter to the police and conducting a clandestine investigation into the incident.
The NEC of the ANC is holding its first physical meeting since the onset of Covid-19 in 2020 at the Nasrec Expo Centre, where its 55th national conference will take place in December, and the Phala Phala matter is expected to dominate the discussions at the gathering, as factions position themselves in the run-up to the elective conference.
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