South Africa president challenges corruption report in court amid ‘Farmgate’ scandal

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa filed ​a claim in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday, challenging a panel report alleging he violated the constitution during his “Farmgate” scandal.

In 2020, thieves broke into President Ramaphosa’s farm and stole over half a million dollars from inside one of his couches. In 2022, one of his private security employees went to the police station to report the theft. Critics from the opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF), accused him of money laundering, stating that if the money was legitimately attained, he would not be hiding it in a couch nor would he attempt to cover up the crime by not reporting the stolen amounts to the police. He responded, confirming the stolen amount was $580,000 and came from a legitimate sale of buffalo.

President Ramaphosa’s political party, the African National Congress (ANC), has been the ruling party since the end of apartheid in 1994. Given that Ramaphosa’s re-election campaign ran largely on anti-corruption pledges, the scandal sparked national outrage and calls for resignation. The national Parliament subsequently deployed its independent panel to conduct a review of the incident. The panel’s report acknowledged the sale receipt for 20 buffaloes but said there are many questions regarding the transaction that are unclear, before finding that there is “substantial doubt about the legitimacy of the source” of the stolen money and alleging the President’s misconduct. President Ramaphosa immediately challenged the Panel’s findings at the Constitutional Court of South Africa (ConCourt).

Section 89 of the South African Constitution allows the Parliament to impeach a president if they are found guilty of a severe violation of the law or misconduct. The report would have naturally triggered an Impeachment Committee that would inquire into the President’s actions and investigate the origin of the money, why it was found in furniture, and why the theft was not reported to the police. However, the ANC majority blocked the Parliament vote for an Impeachment Committee in December 2022.

The EEF opposition party then filed with the ConCourt to revive the impeachment proceedings. In May 2026, the Constitutional Court of South Africa (ConCourt) ruled that the ANC violated the rights conferred by section 89 of the Constitution when it used its majority voting power to block an impeachment inquiry into its own leader, and that independent review committees should be able to assess the president’s handling of the cash theft.

In response, President Ramaphosa confirmed that he will not be resigning, but will maintain his presidency for the entirety of his last term, ending in 2029. Instead, he formally revived his 2022 challenge in the parliamentary panel’s report in a different court yesterday. He submitted that the report was “seriously flawed”, misunderstood its mandate, and relied on inadmissible hearsay evidence regarding the theft, asking the court to set aside the Panel’s finding.

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