South Africa sets May 31 impeachment committee meeting for Ramaphosa case

South Africa’s impeachment process for Cyril Ramaphosa will move into a new stage on Monday, May 31, when Parliament convenes a committee to examine allegations tied to the Phala Phala affair. The body will have 31 members drawn from 16 political parties, and its formation follows the Constitutional Court’s May 8 ruling that revived the case and sent it back into Parliament’s formal machinery.

The court’s decision forced the National Assembly to act after its December 2022 vote on an earlier Section 89 panel report was found unconstitutional and invalid. Speaker Thoko Didiza set out the next procedural steps on May 13, asking parties to submit names by May 22. Parliament then announced on May 25 that the impeachment committee’s membership had been settled. The result is a renewed parliamentary process that will now put Ramaphosa’s conduct under direct scrutiny inside the legislature, rather than leaving the matter to political argument alone.

At the center of the scandal is the February 9, 2020 burglary at Ramaphosa’s private game farm in Limpopo, where foreign currency, widely cited in court and press accounts as about $580,000, was stolen from a sofa. The affair became public in June 2022 after former intelligence chief Arthur Fraser laid a criminal complaint alleging a cover-up and unlawful handling of the theft. In December 2022, Parliament rejected a Section 89 panel report that had found prima facie evidence Ramaphosa may have violated his oath of office. That sequence gave the case its staying power and eventually brought it back before the Constitutional Court.

The committee meeting is not the final word on removal, but it is a serious institutional step because it keeps impeachment alive and forces Parliament to confront the evidence again. The Democratic Alliance said Ramaphosa’s legal review should not delay accountability and that it would participate fully and constructively in the committee. The Economic Freedom Fighters also pressed Parliament to move quickly after the court ruling. For Ramaphosa, the challenge is no longer just the original theft allegation; it is the prolonged test of whether South Africa’s Parliament can meaningfully check a sitting president.