Setting aside the Section 89 report into the Phala Phala saga would not automatically end impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Western Cape High Court heard on Wednesday.
When Western Cape Judge President Nolwazi Mabindla-Boqwana asked President Cyril Ramaphosa’s lawyer about the impact of setting aside the Section 89 panel report – which previously found Ramaphosa had a case to answer over the Phala Phala saga – advocate Wim Trengove replied that the matter would return to Parliament to decide whether to establish a new Section 89 panel.
The court exchange underscores the politicking in the Phala Phala saga that has hung over Ramaphosa and the ANC for more than four years.
Should the matter return to the National Assembly, the Government of National Unity coalition parties, including the ANC, DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus, hold the majority of the 400 seats. This would allow them, if united on this point, to vote down any further proceedings.
Such a move would mirror the ANC’s actions in December 2022, when it relied on its parliamentary majority to defeat the Section 89 panel report that found Ramaphosa had a case to answer over the saga.
However, any future developments depend on the outcome of the judicial review of the Section 89 report, which began on Wednesday, 2 September, in the Western Cape High Court.
This is the latest turn in a protracted legal saga. It follows Ramaphosa successfully securing an interdict to halt parliamentary impeachment hearings pending the outcome of this review – a process effectively revived in May 2026 after the Constitutional Court, responding to an EFF application, set aside Parliament’s December 2022 vote as invalid.
On Wednesday, Trengove argued that the Section 89 panel report had failed to make a “qualitative assessment” and “balancing exercise” of all the evidence, including the President’s submissions, and failed to ask the “right question: Does the evidence show the President acted wilfully and in bad faith?”
Ramaphosa had not knowingly violated any rules, the senior counsel argued; “Even if he’s wrong, he acted in good faith.”
Trengove argued it was not enough for the panel to say prima facie evidence existed, but that “sufficient evidence” was the requisite standard to warrant a public inquiry.
Against this backdrop, Trengove argued, subjecting the President to a public inquiry would cause him irreparable reputational harm and public humiliation. The impeachment committee, which included “the President’s adversaries”, was “the equivalent of a political trial” but without an independent judge.
The Section 89 report’s findingsThe report found that “Viewed as a whole, the information presented to the panel,
prima facie, establishes that:
There was a deliberate intention not to investigate the commission of the crimes committed at Phala Phala openly.
The misconduct based on violations of the provisions of section 96(2)(b) and the violation of section 34(1) of Precca [the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act] were committed to keep the investigation a secret.
The request to the Namibian police to ‘handle the matter with discretion’ confirms this intention.
The President abused his position as Head of State to have the matter investigated and seeking [sic] the assistance of the Namibian President to apprehend a suspect.
There was more foreign currency concealed in the sofa than the amount reflected in the acknowledgement of receipt. This raises [questions about] the source of the additional currency.”
Advocate Anton Katz, for African Transformation Movement (ATM) leader Vuyolwethu Zungula, who brought the impeachment motion in July 2022, and the party, argued that Ramaphosa could not challenge the Section 89 report at this stage, but had to wait until the proceedings were finally decided in the National Assembly.
“We are here because the President had $500,000 in cash on his arm and he did not do what the law required him to do… The public deserve to have an answer,” Katz told the court.
At one stage the court asked about “damage to the national interest” should the President appear in impeachment proceedings, given the disruptive and destabilising effect, as Judge Mark Sher put it.
The national interest is an issue previously raised in the 24 July judgment that granted Ramaphosa an interdict against public parliamentary impeachment hearings. Judge Diane Davis, who penned what became the majority judgment, said: “The national interest requires stability in the functioning of the presidency. The disruption caused by impeachment hearings should not be allowed to happen, as there is a prospect that the impeachment process may be set aside as unlawful.”
Katz made short shrift of Judge Sher’s question, noting: “Every single president will say that.”
But his comments that the President should have thought of that disruption “before he stashed dollars” were cut off by the bench. “No one suggests the President stashing [dollars],” said Sher.
The court again pointed out the only charges the parliamentary impeachment committee could consider are the ones in the Section 89 panel report – Ramaphosa conducted paid work outside his role as President, failed to report the theft of the dollars, and became involved in conflicts of interest.
This exchange highlighted the tensions between legal questions before the court and the political questions that drive the Phala Phala saga in Parliament and elsewhere.
However, the explanation for why $580,000 was stuffed in sofa cushions on Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm – a Christmas buffalo sale and Festive Season security concerns – has been met with public scepticism. Opposition parties have repeatedly raised this on public platforms, including presidential question and answer sessions in Parliament.
A host of findings in the saga have not resolved the controversy.
This includes the Public Protector probe that cleared Ramaphosa in June 2023, after the South African Revenue Service in March 2023 confirmed the President’s and his farms’ full tax compliance. The South African Reserve Bank also cleared the President in August 2023 of exchange control violations, concluding that the buffalo sale had never been finalised because veterinary and export permits were never issued and the animals were never exported.
The review hearing is scheduled to continue until Friday. DM
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