FIC enters Ramaphosa, Mkhwebane battle

Legalbrief Today Issue 4792

The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), which has become central to the Public Protector’s adverse findings against President Cyril Ramaphosa, did not find any evidence of money laundering related to the President, according to a report in The Citizen. In July, Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane found that Ramaphosa deliberately misled Parliament when responding to a question about a R500 000 donation to his 2017 ANC presidential campaign. Mkhwebane also recommended that the campaign be investigated for money laundering. But Ramaphosa has taken that report on review and has argued that Mkhwebane overstepped by expanding her investigation from the R500 000 donation to the financing of his entire campaign. At the centre of that dispute is the FIC, which gave Mkhwebane information on the bank accounts concerned. Ramaphosa’s lawyers accused the FIC of acting unlawfully because they allegedly gave Mkhwebane more information than what she needed to investigate the donation.

 

The FIC has now entered the fray directly, and, in an affidavit filed at the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) on Friday, FIC director Xolisile Khanyile denied that the centre had acted unlawfully. Khanyile also said in her affidavit that the FIC had told the Public Protector’s staff that it had not found evidence of money laundering – adding that this was not the FIC’s mandate, nor was this finding in any way conclusive, says The Citizen report. ‘The FIC maintains that it, at all times, acted in good faith, entirely neutrally, and in accordance with the FIC’s standard operating practice. The FIC wants the court to allow it to intervene in the review application and the matter will be heard on 3 October. Khanyile set out a chain of communication with Ramaphosa’s lawyers in which the FIC was accused of obtaining information unlawfully. The FIC then decided that the dispute should be ventilated in court. In her affidavit, Khanyile also said that, in the process of obtaining the information Mkhwebane sought, the FIC encountered a number of ‘regulatory’ reports into the bank accounts in question. This was done in terms of legislation which requires banks and businesses to report suspicious transactions to the FIC. It was on this basis that the FIC expanded the scope of the information it eventually gave to Mkhwebane, Khanyile said. She added the Public Protector was ‘duty bound’ to do her own investigations after receiving the FIC report.

Full report in The Citizen

 

The FIC made it clear the information could not be used as evidence, according to Khanyile. However, notes the Mail & Guardian, in her report Mkhwebane made only observations about money laundering, instead directing the NPA to investigate further. Ramaphosa said in his supplementary affidavit that, because no findings of money laundering were made, including all the FIC information into the court case was ‘abusive and serves no legitimate purpose under the Constitution or the Public Protector Act'. Mkhwebane is yet to file her own court papers, in which she is expected to address the allegation. In her affidavit, Khanyile said Mkhwebane had asked for the ‘source’ of the donation and ‘where it ended’. Because the donation was ‘commingled’ with other monies as it moved through the three accounts associated with CR17, the FIC then looked at those bank accounts in turn.

Full Mail & Guardian report