#Jetgate: President Ramaphosa now also implicated
1 October 2020
President Cyril Ramaphosa only gave the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, permission to travel to Zimbabwe after she had already returned to South Africa. This was revealed in the Minister’s report into the ANC’s abuse of an air force jet to travel to Harare on party political business.
The President only approved Minister Mapisa-Nqakula’s request to travel to Zimbabwe on 10 September, a full day after the delegation returned.
This means that Mapisa-Nqakula and her entourage left the country illegally without approval from the President and in violation of the Executive Ethics Code which governs Executive travel. The DA will submit this information as supplementary evidence in our complaint against the Minister with Parliament’s Ethics Committee.
Furthermore, and perhaps more astonishing is the fact that the President made an approval to an illegality because he issued approval for a trip which had already taken place without his permission.