FW: PAIA Request dated 2019-01-21
Dear Mr Maimane,
REQUEST DATED 11 JANUARY 2019 IN TERMS OF SECTION 53(1) OF THE PROMOTION OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT, Act 2 of 2002
Further to our mail of 2019-01-31, and your hostile (and highly defamatory) public statements in connection therewith, we have decided to go over each and every paragraph of our earlier e-mail with fine detail.
But let’s dissect what you tried to trick the readers of politics web into believing:
“Forensics for Justice Founder, Paul O’Sullivan’s, reply to my Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) requests to President Ramaphosa, his son Andile Ramaphosa and Bosasa [now African Global Operations (AGO)], is simply not true and his spin of the Ramaphosa family’s involvement in the ANC-Bosasa empire is available for all to see in a transcript where he attests to having a relationship that goes back as far with the Ramaphosa’s as the beginning of Bosasagate itself and that their kids played together while fawning over the President’s integrity.”
Either English is your third language, or you are just being plain and simple dishonest. I feel it’s the latter, when I look at the transcript you have referred to.
“I’ve known Cyril Ramaphosa myself for well in excess of 20 years and I know that Cyril is not a person that engages in unethical activity. As for his son, his son used to play tenpin-bowling many years ago, before he finished his schooling, with my daughters. They used to play tenpin-bowling at what was then called Randburg Waterfront, so I was shocked when I saw these stories.”
I should clarify that, despite your dishonest insinuations, that prior to last September, I had not met with Andile Ramaphosa, since he was a child (when he played ten-pin bowling with two of my children) and had not met with his father for c. ten years now. I know these facts do not suit your twisted agenda, but ‘such is life’, as James Connelly said before the British executed him in Dublin in 1916. So much for your dishonest insinuation of a ‘realtionship’.
Coming back to my mail of 2019-01-31:
We have discovered that an extremely small number of very minor discrepancies appear in our e-mail, which we correct hereunder and apologise for the inconvenience, whilst thanking you for publicly saying I lied, despite being in possession of my e-mail address, as well as an invitation to make contact if you had any queries.
Insofar as what I state hereunder, is contradicted by what I said in my mail of 2019-01-31, the contents of this mail are to be considered factually correct and I will stand by same, no matter what further political dishonesty you peddle to the media.
I wish to mention, in case their has been any such assumption, that we have at no time been in communication with the President on these issues and accordingly anything we say, must not be construed as having the President’s approval or disapproval. We have acted impartially and independently at all times and in the interests of justice, something which people with your level of political ethics simply fail to understand.
I wish to say that I am most disturbed that you, as leader of the DA, have chosen to publicly attack and impugn me. In view of the fact that you have publicly stated that you intend to interdict this charity, using your member’s funds, I have decided to hand back all documents in our possession, save for what is attached.
I would remind you that, unlike yourself, I have spent a lot of personal time and energy (not to mention my own cash) over the last 20 years fighting systemic corruption and have made great personal sacrifices, including being subjected to false arrests and kidnapping, multiple attempts on my life and the lives of my family, as well as kidnapping of my staff, our offices have been raided multiple times and our names have been systematically defamed by the corrupt.
You are the last person I expected to publicly defame me, or jump on the harassment band-wagon, merely because what I had to say did not suit your perverted political agenda. For your information, I have taken down two chiefs of police in a decade, one head of Hawks, and about seven generals and 10 brigadiers, as well as having made significant contributions towards the fall of Abrahams, Jiba, Mrewbi, Jiba, Mdluli and others.
In September last year we opened a docket against Bosasa, which was almost a year after Angelo Agrizzi first approached us. Our docket comprised a full lever arch file and more than two hundred hours of voluntary work. The docket your party opened, soon thereafter, comprised six pages of double line paced waffle and not a shred of evidence.
I was investigating crime on this planet and fighting injustices before you were even born, so you Mr Maimane, will therefore NOT publicly accuse me of being dishonest, when your political dishonesty scrapes the bottom of the proverbial barrel. I now fully understand why the EFF want to part ways with the DA, under your leadership.
Finally, as a result of your vitriolic attack on me, I have decided to dig deep, very deep into your background and associations, and if I find you as much of spat on the sidewalk, I will come after you with the same vigour I went after the Zupta clan. If you have anything to hide you should be afraid, because I will not stop digging. As a point of departure, kindly supply me with all your member’s disclosures, for the last five years. Please also let me have your wife’s ID number, so I can look into her background and business connections. All in the public interest of course.
I stand by what I said, neither Cyril, or his son, have anything to worry about, insofar as BOSAS are concerned. Given the way you are carrying on, I guess Cyril doesn’t have anything to worry about as far as the DA are concerned either.
The corrected mail follows:
Forensics for Justice act for Mr Andile Ramaphosa, in a pro bono capacity and confirm he has not paid us, or agreed to pay us for this matter.
We have advised Mr Andile Ramaphosa that your request as per above is materially defective in a number of ways. The defects render the request pro non scripto and it is therefore void or invalid.
We have advised Mr Andile Ramaphosa that, as such, he would be entitled to simply ignore the request unless and until you submit a properly constructed request, which would have to come de novo.
However, Mr Andile Ramaphosa has instructed us to advise you as follows:
1. He has absolutely nothing to hide, and, despite the multiple material defects in your request, he will treat same as if it was properly constructed.
2. He is entitled to 30 days within which to comply, assuming same was properly constructed (which it wasn’t), which means he could wait until 2019-02-20 before supplying a response.
3. He does not wish to wait the 30 days and has requested us to respond immediately, which we hereby do.
4. We attach a copy of the ‘AGO Advisory Mandate’, dated December 2017
5. We attach a copy of the ‘Anti-Bribery & Corruption Policy’, which is un-dated, but our client instructs us that it was signed in early 2018, in counterpart.
6. The AGO Advisory Mandate between the relevant entities, is now under review and we will inform you of the outcome of those discussions, when finalised.
7. Mr Andile Ramaphosa has no intention of providing copies of any invoices, as this would invade his right to privacy concerning commercially sensitive information, as anticipated by Section 68 (1) (b) and 68 (1)(c) of Act 2 of 2002.
8. For the same reason, a portion of ‘AGO Advisory Mandate’ has been redacted, which also pertains to private addresses.
9. Neither Mr Andile Ramaphosa, or anyone associated with him, was aware at any time, PRIOR to it coming out in Parliament, of any payments in the amount of R500,000 to either himself or anyone else, from BOSASA or any related entity.
10. His father, the President, ‘assumed’ that when the matter was raised by you in Parliament, you were referring to payments made to his son, without any knowledge of what payments his son’s company might have receieved.
We have also consulted with the Campaign Manager of what was known as ‘CR17’, before and following the release of our report dated 2018-12-12, which was placed as an annexure to the sworn statement of Mr Andile Ramaphosa dated which is posted on our website here. For your convenience, we attach a copy in PDF format.
Our further investigations have revealed the following, over and above that which was stated in our 2018-12-12 report:
1. When you raised the mater in parliament, the President, (wrongly) assumed that you were referring to payments received by his son, but he had no specific knowledge of what those payments might be, although he had knowledge of an advisory agreement and had been given a copy of both the advisory agreement and the anti-corruption policy, but did NOT know about any payements.
2. His response made, was therefore a genuine error, as he had no first-hand knowledge.
3. After his response to you in Parliament, his special advisor pointed out the discrepancy to him.
4. The amount of R500,00 was identified and this was pointed out to the President.
5. The President immediately wrote to the speaker to correct his earlier statement.
6. The President had no knowledge as to whom had contributed towards CR17 and did not want to know, so that he would not feel any obligation at any later stage to such contributors. To this day, he still does not know who made contributions, although he has requested the Campaign Manager to verify that all contributions were above board.
7. The initial intention by CR17, was to return the funds to BOSASA / AGO. However, this was not possible, because the funds had not come from BOSASA / AGO, they had been channelled through a 3rd party company’s bank account. The third party is in liquidation and it is now clear that the bank account was operated unlawfully.
8. In our report, we recommended the R500,000 be placed in a separate attorneys trust account, pending a finalisation as to what should legally happen to the funds. Our concern was that the funds may at some stage be identified as ‘proceeds of crime’, or be tainted in some other way.
9. Our advice was recently accepted, the delays being caused by the festive season break. A copy of the proof payment is attached for your information.
10. We will provide a copy of the proof of payment to the DPCI, who are investigating the corruption docket we opened in September last year, with a request that they pass the information on to the Asset Forfeiture Unit ‘AFU’, in case they have an interest.
11. CR 17, will NOT oppose and application by AFU to recover the monies should they choose to do so.
In summary therefore,
1. The President innocently provided factually incorrect information to Parliament, after your oral enquiry.
2. As soon as he realised he had done so, he urgently set the record straight, even though he was not in the country.
3. Mr Andile Ramaphosa had no prior knowledge of any contributions towards CR17 and was not involved in any manner.
4. With the knowledge and advice now at hand, CR 17 campaign paid the funds in trust to an independent law-firm, Harris Nupen Molebatsi, pending the finalisation of the matter.
5. A review of the arrangement between the parties to the Advisory Mandate, is currently under way.
6. We are satisfied that neither Mr Andile Ramaphosa, his father, or the Campaign Manager of CR 17, have in any way acted unlawfully. To the contrary, upon discovering what has happened, they have taken proper and reasonable steps to extract themselves from any association that may create reputational risk.
7. There has been no attempt by any of the parties named above, to influence in any way, what we have stated above.
8. We have not been in contact with any of BOSASA / AGO personalities.
9. Finally, I confirm that Forensics for Justice are A-political and have no interest of whatsoever nature in the outcome of the matter.
In the interests of transparency:
- We have also supplied a copy of this communication to the EFF, as they have recently shown interest in the matter you have raised.
- We have also supplied a copy to Patricia Adams, of the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, with a request that same be communicated to the Ethics Committee members.
- We have also supplied a copy to the Public Protector.
- We shall also be posting the matter on our website, in the interests of transparency.
- We will also make it available to members of the media.
We trust you find the above in order. However, should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best wishes,
Paul O’Sullivan CFE
FORENSICS FOR JUSTICE
