Dear Editor,

Back in 2022 a respected former Chief Justice, Sandile Ngcobo, chaired a panel tasked with ascertaining whether anything, worthy of the considered attention of a presidential removal from office committee of the National Assembly, was in evidence before his panel.

What was known back then was that the president was conducting a farming business despite being constitutionally required to give his full time attention to running the country, all the while avoiding the risk of any conflict of interest; that he was, from December 2019 to February 2020 in possession of over $500,000 in cash stashed in a couch at his Phala Phala farm, without promptly banking the dollars as the law requires, and that after they were stolen in a brazen burglary, the president did not report the theft to the Hawks as required by law, on pain of criminal consequences. Instead, he instructed his security detail to conduct an “off the books” investigation that took it to Namibia, a move since frowned upon by IPID. The president imagined at the time, projecting massively, that the theft would cause panic in the land!

The president now wishes to take the Ngcobo panel’s findings against him on review. Normally, reviews must be mounted within a reasonable time, 180 days of delay is generally regarded as the upper limit. It is so that the president failed to persuade the apex court to sit as a court of first instance in his intended review, but after that opening gambit failed, he did nothing (until now) about proceeding with the review in the High Court as he should have done after the Concourt refused to sit as a court of first instance for his review. Somewhat misguidedly, he regarded, but now no longer regards, the review as moot after the ATM and EFF (successfully as it turned out last week) challenged the constitutionality of the vote in parliament on his removal from office as well as the validity of the formulation of its rules on the topic. Whether the proposed review has any prospect of success or is just a stalling tactic is an open question at this stage. It will remain open until the stalled review is resuscitated and ruled on in the High Court.

Meanwhile, according to reports, the Speaker is gearing up to announce a panel of parliamentarians to adjudicate the president’s removal from office.

The Speaker is also faced with the task of processing motions of no confidence in the president from the ATM and MK opposition parties.

No removal from office is possible in law until the committee reports after which at least two thirds of the National Assembly so votes. By contrast, 50% plus one in a National Assembly vote is all that is required for a motion of no confidence to succeed in which event the president swiftly leaves office with all ministers and deputy ministers in his cabinet.

The ANC commands only 40% of the seats in parliament, enough to block removal, but not, on its own, a motion of no confidence. It remains to be seen whether the motions of no confidence will succeed. Review litigation, in which two appeals are possible, and the work of the removal from office committee will both take far longer to finalise than the processing of the no confidence motions.

We live in interesting times.

Yours in accountability,
Paul Hoffman SC
Director
Institute for Accountability in South Africa
Campaigning as Accountability Now