{"id":27689,"date":"2026-05-12T13:14:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/27689\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:14:27","slug":"south-africa-plans-presidential-impeachment-probe-over-farmgate-scandal-corruption-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/27689\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa plans presidential impeachment probe over \u2018Farmgate\u2019 scandal | Corruption News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The country\u2019s parliament says its speaker will begin the process of setting up the impeachment committee.<\/p>\n

Published On 11 May 202611 May 2026<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s parliament is set to establish an impeachment committee to probe allegations against President Cyril Ramaphosa in the \u201cFarmgate\u201d scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lower house of parliament said on Monday that its speaker will set up the body to investigate. The move was ordered by\u00a0the country\u2019s highest court last week<\/a> as it revived impeachment proceedings against Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The constitutional court on Friday said that parliament\u2019s decision to block an inquiry four years ago into the scandal was inconsistent with the constitution.<\/p>\n

The impeachment committee will review the evidence against Ramaphosa regarding the scandal, which centres on a large sum in foreign currency hidden in a sofa at a farm property owned by the president, before deciding whether to recommend formal proceedings.<\/p>\n

It is expected to deliberate over the matter for several months.<\/p>\n

\"SouthSouth Africa\u2019s President Cyril Ramaphosa, centre, has denied any wrongdoing in the \u2018Farmgate\u2019 case [AFP]<\/p>\n

The scandal centres on the 2020 theft of $4m in foreign cash that was stuffed in a sofa on Ramaphosa\u2019s Phala Phala game farm.<\/p>\n

Amid questions about how the president, who took to power on the promise of fighting corruption, acquired the money, whether he declared it, and why it was hidden in furniture rather than in a bank, Ramaphosa has denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

He said last week that he respected the court\u2019s judgement to revive impeachment proceedings.<\/p>\n

However, in an address to the nation on Monday evening, he said that he will not resign, and that he plans to legally challenge an independent panel\u2019s report that found preliminary evidence he had committed misconduct.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa\u2019s African National Congress has called a meeting of its National Executive Committee on Tuesday to discuss what to do about the scandal, a party spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

The case against Ramaphosa was brought by two opposition parties \u2013 the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the African Transformation Movement (ATM). The EFF has called on the president, who has been in power since 2018, to resign.<\/p>\n

However, even if the impeachment committee\u2019s findings are negative, the president would still likely survive a vote in the lower house of parliament, where a two-thirds majority is required to remove him from office.<\/p>\n

The ANC retains more than one-third of the seats in the National Assembly, despite losing its majority in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The country\u2019s parliament says its speaker will begin the process of setting up the impeachment committee. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1339,3375,56,498,8,630,9,67,9698,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-27689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-corruption","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-investigation","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-south-africa","17":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116561789763833498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}