Who keeps R60 million in cash hidden on their property?
Drug merchants? Abalone dealers? Gun suppliers? Counterfeit currency producers?
You need to be smokkeling something big to have that kind of money stashed under your mattresses and couches.
You don’t expect this from small-time crooks either. Nope, kingpins and mafia bosses, maybe.
And the last person you would suspect would be the President of South Africa - who happens to be a multi-millionaire businessman and corruption crusader, right?
Stranger things have happened.
This week, Cyril Ramaphosa found himself embroiled in an explosive heist scandal in which he faces allegations of corruption, money laundering, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice.
This after former spy boss Arthur Fraser laid a criminal complaint against the president, relating to the theft of some $4 million from his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo.
The case, which reads like an Oceans Eleven meets Dumb and Dumber movie plot, sounds so bizarre that if Ramaphosa had called BS from the start, you’d laugh it off.
But he didn’t deny it, so Fraser’s allegations - along with his “evidence” including photographs, video footage and bank documents - stand.
In summary, the story goes that Ramaphosa’s domestic worker at the farmhouse had konkeled with five Namibians to jep a dollar stash of up to $8m in February 2020.
He didn't report it to police, instead, he allegedly got the head of his Presidential Protection Unit to track down, kidnap, torture and interrogate the suspects.
Each of them were given R150 000 to shut up about the theft and his dollar stash.
Told you it was a humdinger of a story.
In response, the Presidency said that “there is no basis for the claims of criminal conduct that have been made against him”.
However, his office confirmed that “a robbery took place at the president’s farm in Limpopo on or around February 9, 2020, in which proceeds from the sale of game were stolen”.
Ramaphosa offered to “co-operate with any law enforcement investigation”.
Unfortunately, the weak response doesn’t begin to answer the multitude of million dollar questions the public is demanding answers to.
The first being: Didn’t he have a safe? Couldn’t he bank the money soos ‘n gewone mens? Or EFT?
Second: Why not call the police immediately after the crime, like everyone else does?
Third: Where did all that foreign currency come from? Sale of game? Are you sure?
The president may have shot himself in the foot here.
According to Contravention of Currency and Exchanges Act, it is illegal to perform transactions in foreign currency in SA, unless you work in the tourism industry and have obtained permission from Treasury. Even then, you have to declare proof of transactions.
So, fourth question: Did Ramaphosa run all of this by the Treasury and SARS?
There are counter questions, which need to be aimed at Fraser, a known Zuma loyalist.
Like the timing of the allegations - over two years later - when Ramaphosa bids for a second term in charge.
Who is pulling Fraser's strings and what is their agenda?
All good questions - and, oh look, the Guptas have been busted in Dubai - but let’s not get distracted.
Our president is being accused of serious crimes and must answer the allegations - at least before Julius Malema and the EFF turn Parliament into a circus once again.
And while he’s at it, the prez must tell us under which mattress the remainder of the R500 billion Covid fund is hidden.
taariq.halim@inl.co.za