No evidence of money laundering in CR17 fundraising campaign: FIC

The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) did not find any evidence of money laundering in the bank accounts linked to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential campaign. This was revealed in their court application to join Ramaphosa’s judicial review of public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report, in which she made adverse findings against the president.

In her report released early this year, Mkhwebane said that, over and above her findings, the president had deliberately misled parliament when responding to a question about a R500,000 donation made to the campaign, there was prima facie evidence of money laundering which must be further investigated.

In an affidavit filed by FIC director Xolisile Khanyile, the organisation revealed that their analysis of the bank account could not find any traces of money laundering.

Khanyile said that their analyst, Henry Muller, met with an official from the public protector’s office and was taken through the FIC’s analysis.

“At that meeting [Rodney] Mataboge specifically asked for confirmation on whether or not evidence of money laundering was found. Muller informed him that he could find no indication of money laundering as he could not identify any predicate offence from which the monies could have been proceeds of,” said Khanyile.

Khanyile further states in the affidavit that conclusions they made were based on their analysis that the R500,000 in question “came from sources that appeared to be lawful”.

The financial records, which have been leaked to the public, have been at the centre of a dispute between the president, public protector’s office and FIC.

Ramaphosa accused FIC of acting unlawful by giving Mkhwebane banking records that had nothing to do with her investigation of the R500,000 donation. Ramaphosa’s lawyers sent a strongly-worded letter to the FIC in August accusing them of acting unlawful by obtaining the campaign’s banking records – unrelated to Mkhwebane’s investigation – from the banks and providing them to her office.

 

 

The FIC in response said they believed Mkhwebane, as per her request for the information in “confirming source” of a “suspected trail of R500,000” and “where it ended”, was investigating possible unlawful activity on the accounts.

“In terms of the FIC Act, the contraventions of these laws constitute unlawful activity. In this case, the alleged contravention of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act involved a financial transaction (R500 000) hence the involvement of the FIC,” said Khanyisile.

Ramaphosa’s attorneys wrote another letter in September asking FIC to disclose if they believed there was any unlawful activity on the accounts.

The FIC have now denied any wrongdoing in providing Mkhwebane with those financial records and basically argue that they could not have anticipated that the information would be “released into the public domain” as they made it clear that the information was merely for investigation purposes.

“These facts, in my respectful submission, demonstrate that there was nothing unlawful in the conduct of the FIC which, has at all times acted within the law, in good faith and with strict objectivity and neutrality,” said Khanyile.

In other news – City of Joburg accused of disobeying Constitutional Court ruling

The City of Joburg has been accused of breaking a Constitutional Court ruling which states that municipal debt should not be transferred to the new owner. Rob Ryan said he is desperate about his situation with the city demanding R724000 for the old property owner’s debt. And, he says, he believes he is not alone.

He bought a building in Ferndale that had been vacant for about a year. The building was sold by liquidator, Resolution Trust, on behalf of Standard Bank, the bond holder. The previous owner had run up a municipal bill of about R1million before disconnection. Read more

Source – Timeslive

The post No evidence of money laundering in CR17 fundraising campaign: FIC appeared first on News365.co.za.