READER LETTER | Phala Phala ruling could reshape Ramaphosa’s fate — and the EFF’s

At 10am on Friday the Constitutional Court will release its long-awaited verdict on the spat between the EFF and parliament over the latter’s decision to kick the report of a panel led by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo into the long grass (“EFF Leads Picket for Long-Delayed Phala Phala Judgment”, DD Apr 8). That report examines the strange goings-on at the president’s Phala Phala ranch when more than $500,000 cash — the alleged purchase price of cattle that were never delivered to their Sudanese buyer — was stitched into a couch and then stolen by brazen burglars more than a month later. Apparently the president did not think the farm’s safe was safe enough for so much cash.

It seems likely that the long delay in getting to judgment will be explained by the multiplicity of judgments that will be handed down by the tardy justices. The political fortunes of the EFF, currently waning in opinion polls, are likely to be affected by the outcome — win, lose or draw. The “draw” is a possible result in which the majority of the court refuses to deal with the case on its merits by declining to exercise jurisdiction on some or other esoteric basis in law.

Whatever the outcome, a political shakeup is likely to follow. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the political career of the president is at stake, if not in the outcome of the litigation, then in the processes that will follow. —Paul Hoffman,Accountability Now One has to wonder what mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe does in his department.

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A few days ago he assured us: there is no petrol shortage thanks to us being great friends with Iran (“Fuel supply not at risk due to good terms with Iran, Mantashe says”, DD Apr 21). Yet now I read that his department’s statistics show 48% of our crude oil imports come from Nigeria, 18% from Saudi Arabia, 15% from Angola, 8% from the US and 6% from Ghana.

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