The MK Party (MKP) legal representative, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC has described the review application of the Section 89 Independent Panel report made by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Western Cape High Court as a waste of time.
President Ramaphosa wants the court to set aside the report, which found that there is prima facie evidence that he may have committed a serious violation of his oath of office regarding theft at his Phala Phala farm.
Mpofu says the MKP believes that the review application is a delaying tactic by Ramaphosa to avoid being held accountable.
“So, all that we are here (for) is just to waste time, delay, delay, delay, and (the) type Stalingrad … complained about this, stop the evidence leader, the weather and sorts of things to avoid accountability, to just avoid the small letter of accounting to South Africans whose only fault is to want an answer from their president as to whether he is guilty of crime,” argues Mpofu.
The President wants the court to set aside the report, which found that there is prima facie evidence that he may have committed a serious violation of his oath of office regarding theft at his Phala Phala farm.
The lawyer representing the EFF, Advocate Mfesane Ka-Siboto, says it is incorrect to suggest that because the Section 89 Independent Panel Report lacks sufficient evidence in its investigation means that President Ramaphosa cannot be subjected to the Impeachment Committee to answer questions.
Ka-Siboto is representing the EFF as one of the nine respondents on the review application filed by President Ramaphosa to have the report set aside.
The report found that there is a prima facie evidence that he may have committed a serious
He argues that lawyers representing Ramaphosa are making a mistake by saying that insufficient evidence is the reason for it to be reviewed.
Advocate Kessler Perumalsamy, representing ATM member of Parliament Vuyolwethu Zungula, says the Section 89 Independent Panel looked at the incriminating evidence and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s version and found that it is unlikely that the latter evidence is correct.
Perumalsamy argues that the Panel weighed the evidence and was not satisfied with the explanation of events that happened in Namibia.
Day 2 of President Ramaphosa’s Section 89 Phala Phala report review in Western Cape High Court:
