Move along. Nothing to see here.
That is what the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) would have us believe regarding the theft of undeclared foreign currency from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm, the clandestine attempts to retrieve the money and subsequent cover-up of such attempts.
Its conclusion is that there will be no charges against the president ‒ despite the fact that the purported transaction was not handled in a proper manner, there being no contract, no invoice, no bill of sale and the SA Reserve Bank confirming it had no record of the money entering the country.
Yet $580 000, money the president was aware of, found its way into his sofa, from where it was subsequently stolen. Instead of reporting the theft, as one would do if everything was above board, Ramaphosa’s private detail was set on the trail, followed by behind-the-scenes approaches to Namibian authorities to track down the thieves.
Just let Joe Soap try to exchange a few hundred dollars more than a month after bringing it into the country and see how that goes.
But this is Cyril, not Joe, and every relevant arm of state (and the ANC in Parliament) has been at pains to distance him from the transaction and following events instead of getting to the truth.
The SA Revenue Service, Reserve Bank and other entities should be required to enter their reports on Phala Phala into a court record and defend their interpretations of the law, except there is no court record thanks to the NPA.
Several political parties, including some in the governing coalition, have promised to call for the NPA to review its decision, and to account for it before the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development.
This is the bare minimum if we are to believe that the principle of equality before the law is in practice in South Africa, and a crucial test for what the coalition is willing to tolerate.
To the lay person, when money is stuffed in a sofa, it’s money laundering and should be dealt with the same way whether it’s Joe’s sofa or Cyril’s sofa.