President Ramaphosa’s PAIA refusal confirms he has something to hide

14 February 2019

President Ramaphosa’s denial of the Democratic Alliance’s Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request for all contracts and invoices for the services provided by his son, Andile Ramaphosa, and his companies to Bosasa - now African Global Operations (AGO) - has confirmed that the President and his son have something serious to hide.

The DA challenges the President to bring unredacted copies of these contracts with him to his reply to the SONA debate in the House this afternoon to assure South Africa that he and his family are not corrupt and are not beyond reproach. If the President has less to hide than his son and AGO, he should have no problem rising to the occasion.

While Ramaphosa Jr and AGO’s response to similar PAIA requests hid under the ‘commercial interests’ of the Bosasa benches, the President has chosen to hide behind his son’s ‘private body’ in this same triangle of secrecy. This despite the fact that President Ramaphosa is on record as having told Parliament on 6 November 2018 that he had seen these contracts.

The President is compromised. Watching and waiting on corruption is no longer an option for ‘Mr. Squeaky Clean’.

Talk is cheap; President Ramaphosa must act. He has a prime opportunity to show the country that the contracts are as above board as his record reflects, and that he has not colluded his way into the criminal pockets of Bosasa.

He was there. It is high time he stopped insulting the intelligence of the electorate and confess under oath in the House what he ought to have known.

Issued by Solly Malatsi, DA National Spokesperson, 14 February 2019