PRETORIA – The Public Protector says that the large sums of money donated to president Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 election campaign fundraise questions of state capture and money laundering.
This was among Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s findings which she released on Friday in her report on the investigation of Bosasa’s R500,000 donation to Ramaphosa’s campaign fund. Mkhwebane found Ramaphosa deliberately misled parliament when he claimed the money was in fact payment to his son's company for services rendered, a claim he later corrected and confirmed it was for his benefit.
It’s in light of this, she has referred evidence which revealed nearly a billion rand being channelled through several accounts linked to Ramaphosa’s campaign to the authorities for further investigation. “There’s a lot of donations on lots of monies; I think we’ve seen the highest one is R51 million. How do you donate so much money and that’s a very concerning issue because what are your expectations out of that? Hence I’m saying not even a state capture but state of capture.”