Cape Town - Like an egret on a buffalo’s back, the Phala Phala scandal refuses to go away as the SA Revenue Service (Sars) claims to have no record of the supposed transaction’s dollars.
The DA successfully filed a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application with Sars to find out whether US dollars stuffed under a couch on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm were declared at Sars customs as they entered the country.
Ramaphosa’s version is that his farm sold 20 buffalo for $580 000 to Sudanese businessman Hazim Mustafa, who later claimed in a TV interview that the dollars were declared at OR Tambo International Airport.
A fallout from the 2020 burglary on the farm led to Parliament appointing a three-member panel, which found that Ramaphosa had cases of misconduct, corruption and violation of the Constitution to answer for before an impeachment committee, following the theft of millions of dollars on his property.
DA leader John Steenhuisen on December 7 submitted a PAIA request to Sars for the “relevant currency declaration forms that Mr Hamiz Mustafa submitted” while making his supposed declaration.
In a Sars deputy information officer’s PAIA response, the official said: “I have engaged with the relevant business units within Sars and I am satisfied that, as at the date of this letter, after reasonable steps were taken to find the record requested in your PAIA application, the record does not exist and/or cannot be found.”
The official attached Sars lawyer Siyabonga Nkabinde’s affidavit, which said after searches for the record in various Sars passenger processing systems, the declaration “could not be found and/or may not be in existence”.
Late last year, the Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism Department issued a statement to SABC’s “Unfiltered” show, which said: “No application was received from Phala Phala or Ntaba Nyoni CC to export 20 buffaloes to Sudan from 2019 to date (sic).”
The department disowned that statement a few days later.
Sars confirmed responding to Steenhuisen’s PAIA request.
“Sars exercises its mandate without fear, favour, or prejudice in all matters with which it deals. It will continue to do so in this matter,” a Sars statement read, adding that if the record in question was found after March 5, the revenue service would allow Steenhuisen access to it.
“Steenhuisen said Sars’ response means that Ramaphosa “had hidden dirty dollars” and “renders Ramaphosa’s claim that these funds were merely the proceeds of a business transaction impossible to believe”.
He said Sars’ revelation backs the Section 89 panel’s report that there is prima facie evidence Ramaphosa may have violated the Constitution, the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, and his oath of office.
The DA will submit the evidence to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in an attempt to have her acceding to the party’s request for the urgent establishment of an ad hoc committee to deal with the the truth “behind the president’s dirty dollars”.