Following a cash robbery controversy at Cyril Ramaphosa's farm, the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, accused the latter's successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, of corruption and treason on Saturday.
According to AFP, when Ramaphosa was accused of hiding a multi-million dollar cash robbery at his opulent farmhouse earlier this year, Zuma's initial response was to declare that the "president is crooked."
“Your president has committed treason,” he told a news conference in Johannesburg. “No president should conduct private business while in office.”
“It is inconsistent with the oath of office taken by (the) president.
“Our country’s problems are too big for a president who is busy hustling on the side.”
Ramaphosa's Phala Phala farm in the northeast of the country was allegedly broken into by criminals who discovered and seized $4 million in cash hidden in furniture. According to a police complaint made by former national intelligence chief Arthur Fraser, the cash was buried in furniture.
Fraser, a Zuma loyalist, claimed that Ramaphosa orchestrated the kidnapping of the robbers, interrogated them, and then bought their silence. Ramaphosa is accused of hiding the crime from police and tax authorities.
The president has admitted there was a break-in, but he rejects the charges of kidnapping and bribery, claiming he informed the authorities about the incident.
He has also contested the sum of money involved, claiming that it was obtained from lawful sales of the game from his property for the raising of animals.
South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog and the police have opened probes, but Zuma said there was “silence of the many criminalities against the current president”.
The case has piled pressure on the president amid heightened tensions within the ruling African National Congress party as Ramaphosa is expected to seek a second term at the party’s year-end conference.