South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog has reportedly cleared President Cyril Ramaphosa of any wrongdoing in a preliminary report into the Farmgate scandal that involves between $580,000 and $5m of foreign currency hidden at his private farmhouse, reported The Guardian.
The Public Protector said all the implicated parties have been notified about the preliminary findings of the anti-corruption watchdog’s probe over the theft of a huge amount of cash from Ramaphosa’s luxury farmhouse.
On Saturday, Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya said the president has received the probe report, details of which have already been leaked in the local media.
“We note the report. As stated before, we reiterate that the President did not participate in any wrongdoing, nor did he violate the oath of his office,” Magwenya said in a statement.
In June last year, a former spy boss filed a complaint with South Africa’s police alleging that Ramaphosa had hidden the February 2020 burglary from the authorities. He accused the president of having organized for the robbers to be kidnapped and bribed into silence.
The scandal revolves around about half a million dollars in cash that the president claims were stolen from beneath sofa cushions at his ranch. He said the money was payment for the sale of buffalos.
Ramaphosa has been accused of failing to report the matter to the police and abusing his powers and exposing himself to a conflict of interest over the affair.
The report by South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog exonerates the president but found the head of the presidential protection unit to whom Ramaphosa reported the crime acted improperly, investigating the case directly instead of reporting the matter to the police.
The finding is expected to bring some relief to Ramaphosa, who has been facing allegations for months.
Ramaphosa also narrowly escaped a parliamentary vote that could have initiated proceedings to get him removed from the president’s office, and would have canceled his chances of securing a second term after next year’s elections.
