Four years after a secret cash theft at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s private game ranch sparked allegations of serious presidential misconduct, South Africa’s national legislature has moved forward to launch a formal impeachment inquiry, complying with a landmark ruling from the country’s highest court that upends a 2021 attempt to shut down the investigation.
On Monday, parliament announced it would establish a multi-party committee to reexamine the long-running scandal, which centers on claims that Ramaphosa concealed the 2020 theft of more than $580,000 in undeclared cash stashed in a sofa at his farm, failed to report the incident to law enforcement properly, and orchestrated a secret off-the-books effort to recover the stolen funds.
The move comes in direct response to a Constitutional Court judgment issued last Friday, which struck down a 2022 parliamentary vote that blocked impeachment proceedings against the incumbent president as unconstitutional. At the time of that 2022 vote, Ramaphosa’s long-ruling African National Congress (ANC) held an outright majority in the 400-seat national legislature, allowing the party to quash the inquiry despite findings from an independent investigative panel that uncovered credible evidence of potential presidential wrongdoing. The top court ruled last week that procedural rules required the independent panel’s 2022 report to be referred to a dedicated impeachment committee for full review, rather than being dismissed outright by a plenary vote.
The scandal first erupted in 2022, when the former head of South Africa’s State Security Agency filed a formal police complaint accusing Ramaphosa of money laundering and multiple other offenses tied to the hidden cash. The theft itself had been kept secret for two years before the allegations became public. Ramaphosa has repeatedly denied any misconduct, asserting the cash was generated from the legitimate sale of buffalo to international buyers from his game ranch. But the independent 2022 report cast significant doubt on this explanation, noting evidence that the total amount of stolen cash may have been larger than the $580,000 Ramaphosa acknowledged, and documenting that the president used members of his official presidential protection unit to secretly track down the theft suspects without following official law enforcement protocols.
Under South Africa’s constitution, removing a sitting president via impeachment requires the support of at least two-thirds of the 400 sitting members of parliament. The political landscape has shifted dramatically since the 2022 vote: in the landmark 2024 general election, the ANC lost its decades-long parliamentary majority, and now governs as the largest partner in a 10-party national unity coalition. While Ramaphosa remains in a position to survive an impeachment vote if his ANC caucus unites behind him and secures backing from coalition partners, the new inquiry creates significant political uncertainty for his presidency.
In a statement issued shortly after last week’s Constitutional Court ruling, Ramaphosa’s office reaffirmed the president’s commitment to the rule of law, saying, “President Ramaphosa maintains that no person is above the law and that any allegations should be subjected to due process without fear, favor or prejudice.”
Parliament has not yet released a formal timeline for the impeachment committee’s investigation, which must complete its work before any full impeachment vote can be scheduled. For Ramaphosa, who campaigned for office in 2018 on a promise to root out widespread government corruption that flourished during the tenure of his predecessor Jacob Zuma, the renewed inquiry represents one of the most significant challenges to his political career, and has already badly dented the anti-corruption reputation he built upon entering office.