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Tag: Ramaphosa

  • Ramaphosa defends land reform amid Trump and Musk criticism

    Ramaphosa defends land reform amid Trump and Musk criticism

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken with billionaire Elon Musk regarding “misinformation and distortions about South Africa,” the presidency announced on Tuesday.

    During the discussion, Ramaphosa reaffirmed South Africa’s commitment to constitutional principles, including the rule of law, justice, fairness, and equality.

    The call took place on Monday, a day after former U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut aid to South Africa over claims of mistreatment of White farmers.

    In a post on Truth Social, Trump demanded a full investigation into allegations that South Africa was seizing land and discriminating against certain groups. He described the situation as involving “massive” human rights violations but did not provide evidence.

    Ramaphosa denied claims that the government was confiscating land, emphasizing South Africa’s willingness to engage with the Trump administration on its land reform policies.

    Trump’s remarks echo similar concerns he raised in 2018 about South Africa’s land redistribution efforts. Under apartheid, racist laws forced Black and non-White South Africans off their land, reserving it for White ownership. Since the country’s transition to democracy in 1994, the government has pursued land reform to address historical injustices.

    Despite these efforts, economic inequality remains stark, with Black South Africans, who make up around 80% of the population, owning only a small share of the land.

    Last month, Ramaphosa signed a new law outlining conditions for land expropriation, including cases where compensation might not be required.

    Musk, a South African-born billionaire and the head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, has previously criticized Ramaphosa’s policies. On Monday, he accused the president of enforcing “openly racist ownership laws” in a post on X, the platform he owns.

    Ramaphosa defended South Africa’s legal framework, stating that, like many other nations, the country balances land expropriation for public use with property rights protection.

    In response to Trump’s threat to cut aid, Ramaphosa pointed out that aside from a major HIV/AIDS relief initiative, U.S. financial support to South Africa is minimal.

  • South Africa’s investigation assert that chatbot wrote Ramaphosa’s speech

    South Africa’s investigation assert that chatbot wrote Ramaphosa’s speech

    The South African administration is exploring whether parts of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s discourse final week were composed utilizing the fake insights (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, neighborhood media report.

    It takes after claims online that a segment of the discourse conveyed final week at an instruction gathering by the president did not come from the president or his speechwriters.

    The president’s representative, Vincent Magwenya, denied this, saying they don’t utilize AI apparatuses for substance such as addresses.

    He said that parts of the discourse were composed by the office of instruction for the president’s office, including that they were taking after up with respect to the source of the substance.

    “The utilize of AI to create talks or any other fabric is unsatisfactory, and activity will be taken ought to these reports demonstrate to be correct,” Mr Magwenya was cited by The South African news outlet as saying.

  • Gaza-Israel conflict shouldn’t split us apart in South Africa – Ramaphosa

    Gaza-Israel conflict shouldn’t split us apart in South Africa – Ramaphosa

    President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday that South Africans should not let the Israel-Gaza conflict cause more disagreements.

    Last week, there was a protest in Cape Town where people supporting Israel and Palestine argued with each other.

    The president talked about the incident in his weekly letter and said it was concerning and not okay.

    President Ramaphosa and the ANC support the Palestinians.

    He said “It’s not the same thing to support the Palestinian cause as it is to be against Jewish people”.

    Mr Ramaphosa criticized an Israeli newspaper for saying that his government’s support for the Palestinians could lead to violence against the South African Jewish community.

    The letter asked South Africans to stay united as this conflict continues.

    Last week, South Africa told the International Criminal Court (ICC) about what Israel’s government did during the fighting in Gaza.

  • Ramaphosa describes Johannesburg fire deaths a ‘great tragedy’

    Ramaphosa describes Johannesburg fire deaths a ‘great tragedy’

    President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has publicly addressed the Johannesburg fire for the first time, deeming it a “profound tragedy.” During a visit to the Eastern Cape province, he extended his sympathy, stating, “Our thoughts are with all those impacted by this calamity.”

    In response to the incident, he emphasized the collective responsibility to aid survivors in their recovery, both physically and emotionally, stating, “This situation underscores the need for us to unite and support survivors in rebuilding their physical and mental well-being.”

    President Ramaphosa expressed optimism that the ongoing investigations into the fire would contribute to preventing any recurrence of such a devastating event, thereby enhancing community safety and resilience.

  • Cyril Ramaphosa ‘safe’ despite delays for security team

    Cyril Ramaphosa ‘safe’ despite delays for security team

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s safety has not been jeopardized, according to his spokeswoman, who had to fly to Ukraine without members of his security detail since they were stranded on an aircraft in Poland.

    According to the Polish Border Guard, the South Africans did not have the correct paperwork for their weapons.

    Spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the row was “regrettable” and efforts were being made to ensure those on the aircraft could proceed “to cover at least the Russian leg” of the trip.

    But in a tweet, he said the president had arrived safely by train, along with other heads of state from Africa that are part of the peace talks.

  • Putin okays African peace mission bid

    Putin okays African peace mission bid

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has revealed that he had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the forthcoming peace mission involving six African leaders to Russia and Ukraine.

    “President Putin has welcomed the initiative by African heads of state and expressed his desire to receive the peace mission,” a statement from the South African presidency said.

    On Tuesday, the African leaders involved had held discussions “exploring ways of bringing an end to the conflict”, it added.

    The other leaders in the peace bid are from the Comoros, Egypt, Senegal, Uganda and Senegal – and according to a statement from the presidency on Wednesday all said they were available to travel in mid-June.

    “The leaders agreed that they would engage with both President Putin and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky on the elements for a ceasefire and a lasting peace in the region.”

    The two presidents’ foreign ministers are currently working on finalizing a roadmap for peace, according to the statement.

    Additionally, a Russia-Africa summit is set to occur in St. Petersburg at the end of July, as announced by the presidency.

  • South Africa’s main opposition leader remains Steenhuisen

    South Africa’s main opposition leader remains Steenhuisen

    In an effort to remove the African National Party (ANC) as the country’s ruling party in the national elections held next year, the Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party in South Africa, re-elected John Steenhuisen as its head on Sunday.

    In order to defeat his opponent, former Johannesburg executive mayor Mpho Phalatse, who received only 17% of the vote, Mr. Steenhuisen received 83% of the vote.

    Over the ensuing three years, he will be the party’s leader.

    In his acceptance speech, Mr Steenhuisen said the DA will work with other “like-minded parties” ahead of the 2024 elections.

    He, however, ruled out working with the ruling ANC and the smaller opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the upcoming elections.

    Mr Steenhuisen took over the reins of the party in November 2019 following the resignation of then DA leader, Mmusi Maimane.

    President Cyril Ramaphosa will be seeking re-election under ANC – whose popularity has declined in recent years.

  • 87 South Africans arrested ahead of anti-govt protest

    87 South Africans arrested ahead of anti-govt protest

    South African security forces have said that 87 people had been arrested in the last 12 hours across the country over public violence ahead of planned protests by the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.

    The EFF has called for a national shutdown to protest crippling power cuts and demand the resignation of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

    The party is demanding that President Cyril Ramaphosa step down because he is allegedly not running the country properly.

    “On the 20th of March, we have to shut down this country to show the whole world that we are concerned about the state of affairs. We can’t fold our arms,” Julius Malema, leader of the EFF, said in a video message on the weekend.

    He said the shutdown could be the beginning of an unstoppable revolution. The party has requested non-essential workers to remain home or join the protest.

    The party’s main constituency are the poor and working class Black South Africans who feel left out of the country’s prosperity since the governing African National Congress (ANC) ended white minority rule in 1994.

    Ramaphosa warned Thursday that the EFF’s planned protests were not a mere shutdown but an attempt to overthrow the government.

    Of the eighty-seven arrested, 41 were in Gauteng, the province which includes the capital Pretoria and the main city Johannesburg, 29 in were in North West province, and 15 in Free State, National intelligence body NatJOINTS said in a statement, adding that there has been arrests in other provinces such as Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape.

    Parliament said in a statement on Sunday that the South African military would deploy 3,474 troops for a month until April 17 to prevent and combat crime in cooperation with the police.

    “Law enforcement officers are on high alert and will continue to prevent and combat any acts of criminality,” NatJOINTS said. 

  • South Africa issues an alert over “attempts to topple government.”

    South Africa issues an alert over “attempts to topple government.”

    The opposition protests scheduled for Monday, according to South African police, are an attempt to overthrow the government rather than just a shutdown.

    In response to the nation’s electricity crisis, the opposition group Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is planning statewide marches and has demanded that President Cyril Ramaphosa step down.

    “This is an attempt to overthrow the government. This is not a shutdown, but it’s anarchy,” KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, said on Friday while briefing media on security plans to deal with threats posed by the protests.

    “The magnitude of threats differs from other planned shutdowns and that is why we have to be extra vigilant,” Mr Mkhwanazi was quoted by local media as saying.

    He said police have received no notices of any planned gatherings in the province, adding that over 18,000 security officers would be deployed during the march, eNCA TV reported.

    President Ramaphosa on Thursday warned that anarchy will not be tolerated during the protests and called on security forces to “defend our people”.

    Mr Ramaphosa said the only way to get him out of office and power is through a vote.

    Julius Malema, the EFF leader, insists the protests are not illegal and has warned that anyone who attempts to stop them would “meet their maker”, News24 reported.

  • South Africa: Soweto residents divided on Ramaphosa’s probe

    On Friday, Soweto residents voiced their opinions on the country’s president in light of calls for Cyril Ramaphosa to resign after a parliamentary investigation concluded he may have broken anti-corruption rules.

    25-year-old Linda Mogoje, an unemployed Soweto Resident said he does not believe that Ramaphosa has added any value to the country since he’s been in power. “I feel that for me, he hasn’t brought any change,” he said.

    Opposite views were held by 18-year-old Melva Maphaha, who feels that the issue has nothing to do with Ramaphosa’s presidency. “I think so far he’s been a good President,” she said.

    Adding, “I think that he has been trying his best.”

    Pule Galeboe, 69, echoed the same sentiment saying the president should not resign.

    “He must continue because he is a good leader as far as I’m concerned. He brings investors into the country, which creates jobs,” he said.

    The calls for Ramaphosa to resign follow allegations by the country’s former head of intelligence, Arthur Fraser, that the President tried to conceal the theft of a huge sum of cash stuffed into couches at his farm in 2020.

    Fraser accused the president of money laundering and violation of foreign currency control laws.

    The ruling party’s highest decision-making body is expected to meet Thursday evening tobe briefed on the matter and possibly to determine Ramaphosa’s fate.

     

    Source: African News

     

  • Ramaphosa ‘to step aside’ if charged over scandal

    Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, has stated that he will “step aside” if accused of covering up a robbery that occurred on his private farm.

    “Should the president be charged he would gladly step aside – should it be the case,” presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya told journalists.

    He added: “But as things stand there are no criminal charges against the president. What you have is a series of investigations that he’s fully co-operating with and he will continue to do so.”

    Source: Afican News

  • South Africa: Will President Ramaphosa be re-elected by the ANC?

    Ahead of a decisive conference of South Africa’s historic ruling party, the ANC, President Cyril Ramaphosa is looking weakened as he seeks to win a second term in the 2024 elections.

    A scandal linked to bundles of cash found in one of his properties during a burglary in 2020 is tarnishing the image of the man who presented himself as a “clean hands” champion when he succeeded Jacob Zuma, who was himself brought down for corruption, and putting him on the defensive. South African experts are looking at possible scenarios:

    Can Ramaphosa still be nominated by the ANC?

    “He remains the best-placed candidate,” says political scientist Susan Booysen. “Ramaphosa will probably make it, but the degree of certainty has gone down. He remains the clear favourite but his credibility has been shaken like never before,” says political commentator Eusebius McKaiser.

    “He is not in the strongest position, but he is still the most likely to win,” says Pearl Mncube, a political scientist at Frontline Africa Advisory, given the lack of well-positioned opponents and the support he continues to enjoy within the party.

    Cyril Ramaphosa, a former protege of Nelson Mandela who became a wealthy businessman before returning to politics, has fallen from his pedestal.

    “He used to be an icon of the fight to clean up” the country from corruption, “a paragon of virtue, even though he came from the business world,” says Susan Booysen. The scandal linked to his property in Phala Phala (north-east) makes “doubts about his probity and reminds us that he is not a superman”.

    But “despite all the weaknesses of the current president, compared to other candidates, he remains the best chance” for the ANC to stay in power, says Eusebius McKaiser.

    Recent polls show that the ANC, which fell below 50 percent for the first time in its history in local elections in 2021, could repeat that performance in 2024.

    Who are his opponents within the ANC?

    There are many, but for the time being, there is no single name that unites the opposition to Cyril Ramaphosa. Former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, who resigned in August 2021 after being accused of misappropriating budgets allocated to Covid’s prevention campaigns, “has a chance” and remains popular, says Susan Booysen.

    The other known candidates, Lindiwe Sisulu and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, “have not garnered support in the provinces, whereas Mr. Ramaphosa and Mr. Mhize have.

    “All the other candidates are flawed, so there is no real threat” to Cyril Ramaphosa, says Eusebius McKaiser.

    Many of the delegates who vote “are aware that their own careers are linked to the ANC’s success in the elections,” he said. Therefore, “whatever their inclination, they will also selfishly consider which candidate gives them the best chance of retaining their position.

    The ANC has never been so contested in the country and Cyril Ramaphosa being “the least bad of the candidates”, some delegates could “support him”, pushed by this context, he insists.

    Former President Zuma recently called Cyril Ramaphosa a traitor and corrupt. How much influence can he have on the vote?

    It is “less than he thinks,” says Eusebius McKaiser. Jacob Zuma’s press conference on Saturday was “the diatribe of a guy desperate to be an influencer, not the calm, persuasive communication of a man convinced of his power,” the veteran commentator says.

    If he had real influence, his candidate, his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, would have had the support of her region, zulu country, which is not even the case, several experts point out.

    Source: Africa News

  • South Africa’s president under investigation over unreported theft of $4m

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a criminal investigation after a revelation that he failed to report the theft of about $4 million in cash from his farm in northern Limpopo province.

    An account of the theft is contained in an affidavit by the country’s former head of intelligence Arthur Fraser, who has opened a case against Ramaphosa.

    Ramaphosa has not denied the theft but claims that he reported it to the head of his VIP Protection unit, who did not report it to the police.

    In South Africa, it is illegal not to report a crime and according to Fraser’s affidavit, Ramaphosa tried to conceal the theft, which happened in February 2020 when he was attending an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

    Several opposition parties have called for a full investigation into the theft, including whether the amount of foreign currency allegedly stolen had been declared to the South African Revenue Service.

    The Democratic Alliance, the country’s biggest opposition party, said Ramaphosa should come clean about the circumstances surrounding the theft and why it was not reported to the police.

    “The president is facing a crisis of credibility and cannot hide behind procedural smokescreens to avoid presenting South Africans with the full truth around the money that was stolen from his farm, and the subsequent cover-up,” the opposition party’s leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement.

    Another opposition party, the United Democratic Movement, has called on Ramaphosa to take a “leave of absence” while Parliament probes the incident, saying it is not prudent for it to do so while he was in office.

    Ramaphosa publicly spoke about the incident for the first time over the weekend since the revelations surfaced, saying the cash was from buying and selling animals on his farm.

    “I want to reaffirm that I was not involved in any criminal conduct, and once again I pledge my full cooperation with any form of investigation,” said Ramaphosa on Sunday.

    “I would like to say that I’m a farmer. I’m in the cattle business and the game business. And through that business, which has been declared to Parliament and all over, I buy and I sell animals,” he said.

    The sales are sometimes through cash and sometimes through transfers, and what is being reported is a clear business transaction of selling animals, said Ramaphosa.

    He was addressing the Limpopo provincial conference of the ruling party, the African National Congress, where his political allies were re-elected, boosting his own chances for re-election as the ANC’s president at the party’s national conference in December.

    Ramaphosa’s supporters have cried foul, saying the timing of the revelation is part of efforts to derail his efforts to be re-elected party president in December.

    The information about the theft was revealed by Fraser, the former head of South Africa’s intelligence, who is known to be loyal to former President Jacob Zuma.

    Fraser controversially approved Zuma’s release from prison on medical parole last year, an action that is now being contested in court as illegal. Zuma had been sent to prison last year after he was convicted of defying the Constitutional Court by refusing to testify at a judicial inquiry probing allegations of corruption during his presidential term from 2009 to 2018.

    Source: Voanews

  • Ramaphosa backs Western Sahara independence

    South Africa is “unapologetic” in its support of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Western Sahara, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

    He is hosting Brahim Ghali, the visiting leader of Polisario Front – the republic’s pro-independence group.

    Western Sahara – a former Spanish colony is considered a “non-self-governing territory” by the United Nations.

    Morocco, which controls 80% of the territory and claims ownership on the entire replublic, has clashed with neighbouring Algeria which has backed the Polisario Front since the 1970s after the Spanish left.

    “We are concerned about the silence that persists in the world about the struggle for self determination for the people of Western Sahara,” Mr Ramaphosa said on Tuesday.

    “It’s a just struggle, it’s a noble struggle, it’s an honourable struggle, a people who want to determine their own destiny though self determination,” said Mr Ramaphosa, drawing comparison with South Africa’s fight against white minority apartheid regime.

    Source: BBC

  • Ramaphosa backs Western Sahara independence

    An announcement by the presidency’s office promoting a deceased general has caused some hilarity and confusion in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    People have been tweeting clips of the announcements, with many wondering how the error was made.

    General Floribert Kisembo Bahemuka was killed in 2011 during an operation, but his name was on a list of military leaders being retired or promoted by President Felix Tshisekedi on Monday.

    The deceased was appointed to lead military operations in the northern Equateur province.

    The DR Congo army confirmed the veracity of the list when contacted by the BBC.

    The presidency told us that a “data operator” was to blame for the error.

    Source: BBC