Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader Mmusi Maimane has stated that South African taxpayers should not be required to fund President Cyril Ramaphosa’s legal challenge against the independent Phala Phala panel report. Maimane emphasized that while the President is fully within his constitutional rights to pursue available legal remedies, the matter pertains to Ramaphosa’s private farm and personal affairs, and therefore should be financed in his personal capacity.
The statement follows Ramaphosa’s filing of papers in the Western Cape High Court seeking to set aside and review the independent panel’s report concerning incidents at his Phala Phala farm. Maimane warned that taxpayers could face a substantial legal bill, noting that the case is expected to proceed through multiple judicial levels—including the High Court, the Supreme Court of Appeal, and potentially the Constitutional Court—regardless of interim outcomes.
Maimane drew a comparison to former President Jacob Zuma’s legal challenges, which he noted cost the state approximately 30 million rand. He argued that allowing state funding for this litigation would establish a concerning precedent where public office holders use state resources to defend personal matters.
“The taxpayer cannot be financing across all of those actors to litigate against each other on a matter that in my humble opinion, if the president’s action which is to review is private,” Maimane stated. He maintained that the appropriate forum for presidential accountability is Parliament, not the courts. “What the public are asking for is for the president to come to parliament as a standard for him to account there. That’s where the president accounts.”
Maimane clarified a distinction between institutional and personal litigation: should Parliament itself pursue legal action to advance an impeachment process in the interest of public accountability, those costs could legitimately be taxpayer-funded. However, when an individual officeholder initiates litigation against the state regarding personal matters, the financial responsibility should rest with that individual until a court determines otherwise.
He referenced prior instances where ministers were personally awarded cost orders after litigation related to their official duties, underscoring that accountability mechanisms should not be shifted to the judiciary. “Accountability cannot be sought in the courts. South Africa is politicizing its courts,” Maimane asserted.
While acknowledging that Ramaphosa’s court application seeks, among other outcomes, to halt the parliamentary impeachment committee process, Maimane noted that the current filing does not carry the effect of an urgent interdict. He reiterated that the central question for Parliament should remain whether the President has acted consistently with his constitutional oath to defend the laws of the Republic.
Maimane concluded that regardless of the legal process, the people of South Africa deserve clarity on whether the President believes his actions have complied with all laws of the Republic—a determination he argued belongs in the parliamentary arena rather than through protracted personal litigation funded by the public purse.
