The Phala Phala impeachment saga that continues to haunt President Cyril Ramaphosa was due back in Parliament on Thursday — but it was postponed yet again.
In a note sent to members, African Tranformation Movement parliamentary leader Vuyo Zungula, who sits on the Section 89 committee, confirmed the latest stall.
“Good afternoon, Members. Please note that due to unavailability of the majority of members, the meeting scheduled for Thursday, 8 October 2026 has been postponed to a later date. A new poll will be posted in the group in due course,” the notice read.
It is the latest setback for a process that has dragged for almost four years since the farmgate scandal first erupted in June 2022.
The Section 89 committee had been scheduled to reconvene on Thursday to receive a briefing from Constitutional and Legal Services on the appointment of an Evidence Leader and on litigation now hanging over the committee. That will no longer happen.
The committee is facing two court challenges after it rescinded the appointment of Advocate Thuli Madonsela SC as Evidence Leader on 1 September 2026.
The EFF and the African Legal Professionals Association (ALPA) have both lodged applications to review and set aside that decision.
Parliament has decided to fight.
19 members voted to oppose the applications, nine voted to abide.
Thursday’s meeting was also expected to finalise draft Terms of Reference covering procedural fairness, evidence standards and the independence of the committee from findings of other institutions.
Ramaphosa has consistently maintained he broke no law and is willing to be investigated.
The scandal stems from former spy boss Arthur Fraser’s complaint that at least $580,000 in cash was stolen from Ramaphosa’s Limpopo game farm in February 2020 and covered up.
Ramaphosa admitted the theft but said it was proceeds from buffalo sales.
Meanwhile, parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi concluded its deliberations on its draft report in the early housr of Thursday morning.
The draft report runs to 790 pages and, after six extensions, the committee is now racing to meet a 30 October deadline — a process chairperson Soviet Lekganyane described as a “marathon.”
“This has been a marathon,” Lekganyane said, thanking MPs and the content team for seeing the process through.
The committee has found that evidence given by self-described political fixer Brown Mogotsi cannot be taken at face value and included in the final report without proper scrutiny — with Patriotic Alliance MP Ashley Sauls dismissing his testimony as unreliable.
The ad hoc committee is probing wide-ranging claims of criminal infiltration, corruption and political interference in the justice system — among them allegations that Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala paid cash to former Police Minister Bheki Cele, the no-show by former Crime Intelligence boss Feroz Khan, how MP Fadiel Adams accessed classified information, and the R228-million SAPS healthcare contract linked to Matlala.
The draft will now be sent to implicated parties for response before tabling in the National Assembly.