South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is standing his ground in a deepening campaign funding scandal that threatens to scar his reputation and undermine his drive to tackle rampant graft, insisting that he has done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n
Busisiwe Mkhwebane, the nation\u2019s anti-graft ombudsman, said Ramaphosa misled lawmakers about a donation to his 2017 campaign to win control of the ruling party and instructed parliament to censure him for violating the constitution and the executive ethics code.<\/p>\n
While Ramaphosa said he was kept at arm\u2019s length from his campaign fund-raising, Cape Town-based website News24 reported that it obtained verified copies of leaked emails from his camp disproving his assertion.<\/p>\n
“This is smoke and mirrors,” Khusela Diko, Ramaphosa\u2019s spokeswoman, said in an interview with Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA on Monday.<\/p>\n
“The president hasn\u2019t committed any crime. None of those donations are coming from anybody whom, from the best of our knowledge, would have obtained that money illegally.”<\/p>\n
Mkhwebane initiated an investigation into the president at the request of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, which questioned whether a R500,000 ($33,500) payment his campaign received from Gavin Watson, the chief executive officer of services company Bosasa, was above board.<\/p>\n
Testimony given to a judicial panel has implicated the company in paying bribes to senior government officials to win contracts.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa said he inadvertently failed to disclose the payment to lawmakers and rectified his mistake as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s challenging Mkhwebane\u2019s findings that he intentionally misled parliament and filed an urgent interdict to postpone any censure until the case is heard. A date for both hearings has yet to be set.<\/p>\n
More than 120 people donated money to Ramaphosa\u2019s campaign on the understanding that they should expect nothing in return, according to Diko.<\/p>\n
“We stand by our statements that the president was not privy to the day-to-day running of the campaign,” and didn\u2019t know about Watson\u2019s donation, she said. “Yes, there were times where guidance may have been sought from him.”<\/p>\n