DA disgusted by Ramaphosa’s latest attempt to aid and abet Bonnie and Clyde

30 July 2020

Note to Editors: Please find attached English soundbite by Dr Leon Schreiber MP, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration.

Following months of relentless pressure by the Democratic Alliance (DA), we have now received information that President Cyril Ramaphosa intends to place the Director-General of the Public Service Commission (PSC), Dr Dovhani Mamphiswana, “on precautionary suspension with full pay.” The DA rejects with contempt this latest transparent attempt to protect Mamphiswana’s income stream, who is a known ANC cadre.

Instead of safeguarding taxpayer money by immediately firing Mamphiswana and instituting criminal procedures, Ramaphosa intends to continue funneling taxpayer funds into the pocket of an ANC cadre who has turned South Africa’s premier public ethics watchdog into a cesspit of corruption.

Ramaphosa’s latest attempt to protect Mamphiswana’s R2 million annual salary comes after he has sat on his hands since February, when advocate SmangaSethene from the Office of the State Attorney first recommended that Ramaphosa must immediately suspend Mamphiswana.

The President failed to act, and also failed to fire Mamphiswana even after Sethene’s investigative report confirmed on 8 July that the Director-General had illegally influenced the appointment of his mistress and the mother of his child, Boitumelo Mogwe, to the position of Chief Director for Professional Ethics in the PSC.

Sethene’s investigation confirmed that the ANC’s very own Bonnie and Clyde pair of bandits had conspired to commit “premeditated deceit, dishonesty, fraud and corruption calculated to deceive…the citizens of the Republic of South Africa,” and that they both violated the Public Finance Management Act as well as the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. On the basis of these findings, the DA has already laid criminal charges against both Mamphiswana and Mogwe.

While the DA acted decisively against what advocate Sethene calls “nepotism par excellence,” Ramaphosa has tried to deflect the findings against the corrupt pair by bizarrely instituting a second investigation. Now that his strategy is cracking under DA pressure, the President is trying to place Mamphiswana on suspension with full pay to make it look like he has taken action.

The DA calls on South Africans to see through this ruse. There is overwhelming evidence that the ANC’s own Bonnie and Clyde committed crimes against the people of South Africa. They must not receive another cent in taxpayer money, be fired immediately, be held criminally liable, and the state must recoup all money illegally paid to these bandits.

The DA reiterates our warning that if Ramaphosa continues to try and deflect and evade his responsibility, we will obtain legal advice to hold the President legally accountable for breaching his constitutional duty to promote and sustain a high standard of professional ethics in the public service.

Issued byLeon Schreiber,DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 30 July 2020