Johannesburg – Finally, the Section 89 Independent Panel Report that will provide recommendations on whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should face an impeachment committee for the Phala Phala farmgate scandal has been handed over to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.
The report was handed over to the Speaker at the Imbizo Centre in Parliament by retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, who chaired the panel.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the final decision on whether the committee must go forward did not lie with her.
“Whatever is to be decided about this report will be decided by the National Assembly,” she said.
She said that when it was announced that the report would be received today, it was also announced that next week, on Tuesday, December 6, the report would be tabled.
She said that if the matter led to a vote in Parliament, then the normal voting process of Parliament would be used.
“Once there are people who feel strongly about dealing with the matter differently, then the Speaker has an obligation to look into (this), the reasons provided for the Speaker to then consider the matter,” she said.
Ngcobo said the report consisted of three volumes, with the first volume being the report itself and the other two volumes the records of the proceedings, which contain every document that was relied upon in order to prepare the report.
“There has been a lot of anxiety from the people of South Africa, understandably so,” he said.
Ncgobo thanked parties, including the African Transformation Movement, the EFF, the UDM, and President Ramaphosa himself, for the contributions they had made in ensuring that the necessary information was still at hand.
“Ironically, it is precisely this information that made it impossible for us to meet the required deadline.”
He said that the job of the panel was to interrogate the information that members of the Assembly saw fit to present and he thanked all who had participated in the panel.
The Star