A long-awaited report into an alleged corruption scandal targeting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a month before a crucial deadline for his political future will be examined on December 6, parliament announced Thursday.
In September, an independent parliamentary committee was tasked with examining the responsibility of President Ramaphosa in the 2020 case and issuing conclusions that could lead to a possible vote in favor of his impeachment.
“The parliamentary commission met this morning. The date for the presentation of the report was extended until November 30. It was decided that the National Assembly would examine this report on December 6,” ten days before the congress of the historic ruling party, the ANC, parliamentary spokesman Moloto Mothapo told AFP.
A parliamentary recess that was due to start on December 1 has been postponed to consider the report, which was originally due to be presented on Thursday.
The African National Congress (ANC) is due to meet from December 16 to decide whether or not to invest Ramaphosa’s candidate for a second term in the 2024 presidential election, re-electing him party chairman.
Successor to Jacob Zuma, who was forced to resign in 2018 after a series of scandals, the current president is expected to tackle the corruption front he promised to root out.
According to a complaint filed in June by former South African intelligence chief Arthur Fraser, the thieves broke into a farm owned by the president in Phala Phala, in the northeast of the country, in February 2020. They found large sums of cash.
Cyril Ramaphosa is accused of concealing the theft from the police and the money from the tax authorities, arranging the kidnapping and interrogation of the thieves, and then bribing them into silence.
The President, who was repeatedly attacked on the subject during heated sessions in the Assembly, denied the accusations, questioned the amounts mentioned and maintained that the money found was actually from the sale of cattle. He also denounced the political goals of his opponents.
In South Africa, the removal of the head of state is subject to a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly. The ANC led by Cyril Ramaphosa has more than two-thirds of the seats.