The Phala Phala inquiry has been put on hold after a South African court sided with President Cyril Ramaphosa in his bid to delay parliamentary hearings over the farm theft scandal. The ruling gives the president breathing room while he fights a separate legal challenge tied to the same affair.
The Western Cape high court order on Friday stopped the committee from moving ahead with its work until Ramaphosa’s review case is decided. Judge Andre le Grange said the hearings were to remain halted pending the court’s determination of the president’s challenge to the panel’s findings. Two of the three judges agreed with Ramaphosa, giving him the majority ruling he sought.
Ramaphosa’s legal team had argued that allowing the impeachment process to continue while his other case was still pending could cause lasting damage to his reputation. The president also said in his challenge that the independent panel had misunderstood its role, weighed the evidence incorrectly and read the charges against him wrongly. After Friday’s ruling, he said he noted and respects the court’s decision.
The dispute reaches back to 2020, when burglars broke into Ramaphosa’s private farm in Phala Phala, in Limpopo province, and stole money that had been hidden in a sofa. The amount was described as at least $580,000 in US dollar bills. The theft was not made public until two years later, when former spy chief Arthur Fraser sent a dossier to police raising the alarm and accusing the president of hiding the crime from police and tax authorities.
That disclosure turned the Phala Phala inquiry into one of the most politically charged episodes of Ramaphosa’s presidency. Because the stolen funds were foreign currency, the case also raised questions about possible exchange-control violations. An independent panel later said in 2022 that Ramaphosa may have a case to answer. He denied wrongdoing. At the time, lawmakers voted against setting up an impeachment inquiry, but in May the Constitutional Court found parliament had acted unlawfully when it set aside the panel’s report.
