WATCH | I am not a sellout – Cyril Ramaphosa

“I can testify I’ve never been a spy. I have never worked with the enemy. All I’ve ever done in my life is my commitment to the people of our country.”

This was the emphatic denial by President Cyril Ramaphosa before a joint sitting of parliament on Thursday of COPE leader Mosioua Lekota’s shocking allegation on Wednesday that Ramaphosa had sold him and his comrades out to the apartheid security branch in 1974 when they were student activists taking part in a Frelimo rally.

Kicking off his response to the debate on the state of the nation address, Ramaphosa said he had been advised to ignore Lekota’s “vitriol”, but he chose to act against that advice to deal with the COPE leader’s claims.

“I was waiting for pearls of wisdom from our MPs but instead of engaging seriously with matters of national importance raised in Sona, several speakers used this platform for personal attacks, for vitriol and pontification,” he said.

Ramaphosa then detailed how he and other student leaders had been arrested for marching at the Mankweng police station in the former Lebowa area (now Limpopo province), before he was transferred to Pretoria, where he was detained for six months.

“They started interrogating me, which was vicious and I will not go into that.

“The issue that they wanted from me was to give evidence against accused number one Saths Cooper, Muntu Myeza – accused number two, Terror Lekota – accused number 3, and a number of others, and I refused.

Ramaphosa said he had also refused to sell out his comrades even after the security branch tried to get his father, who was a police officer at the time, to get him to agree to turn state witness against his fellow activists.

“I said, ‘Dad, I’m not going to do it. I will never betray the comrades that I was working with and if I did, where will I go and live thereafter?’ I refused.”

Ramaphosa then turned to EFF leader Julius Malema, who had suggested on Tuesday that Ramaphosa had sold out workers because he oversaw the establishment of the National Union of Mineworkers at the behest of the mining giant Anglo American.

“That story started being spread by some within our own ranks who, at the time, had been tasked with organising mineworkers but because their approach had not worked, they then started spreading a story as they saw the NUM growing,” he said.

Ramaphosa said that back then, workers were suspicious of their intention as they did not have permission from their employers, but that all changed after they secured approval to organise workers from the Chamber of Mines.

“We got access and we started organising mineworkers.

“At the time, Anglo American and Rand Mines were the only two miners that had allowed workers to join a union.

“Why would Anglo American act against its own interests, because it was Anglo American which was most severely impacted by the strikes that mineworkers embarked upon?

“Now honourable Lekota and honourable Malema, you raise these issues and throw around innuendo.

“You must realise how dangerous this is.”

The president reminded Malema that he had defended him when there were claims doing the rounds that the EFF was a project of MI6, a foreign intelligence service of the UK government.

He said he would not be setting up a commission of inquiry to probe the “sellout” claims against him, which was proposed by EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu.

“I have no interest as the president of this country to appoint judicial commissions which are going waste taxpayers’ money for nothing. “That I will not do.”

The ANC, meanwhile, has dismissed Lekota’s claims.

“We reject these insinuations with the contempt they deserve,” acting national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.

“The ANC has full confidence in President Ramaphosa‚ and we do not take kindly to desperate attempts to call into question his integrity.

“Allegations of this nature are often made when the accuser fears exposure for his own misdeeds or runs out of political ideas.” –TimesLive