President Cyril Ramaphosa’s stoic silence and steadfast refusal to come clean on the so-called ‘Farmgate’ scandal that threatens to become his Nkandla was as deafening as the chaos that erupted during yesterday’s parliamentary sitting on his department’s budget vote.

The National Assembly descended into rowdy chaos, reminiscent of scenes from ex-President Jacob Zuma's days when the EFF ran its 'pay back the money' campaign.

Ramaphosa was forced to wait more than an hour before being able to table his budget vote as screaming members of the EFF took over.

EFF MPs said they would not listen to a ‘criminal, money launderer and kidnapper’ and a ‘murderer’ of Marikana workers, and raised repeated points of order to prevent proceedings from continuing. They were referring to the recent charges laid against Ramaphosa by former State Security Agency head Arthur Fraser, including money laundering, kidnapping and corruption related to the theft of a reported $4m from his Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo, says a Business Day report.

ANC MPs responded to the EFF interventions with their own shouts as the sitting descended into a slanging match over which Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula had little control.

Her repeated calls for order were repeatedly ignored.

She eventually had to get Parliament’s protection services and the sergeant-at-arms to remove five EFF MPs and had to mute the EFF members participating on the virtual platform to allow Ramaphosa a chance to speak.

Mapisa-Nqakula had to maintain a delicate balancing act between allowing freedom of speech and allowing the proceedings to continue, and eventually referred to a Constitutional Court judgment that said the privileges of freedom of speech can never go so far as to give MPs a licence to disrupt the proceedings of Parliament.

Ramaphosa made no mention in his speech of the charges laid by Fraser, who is said to be an ally of former President Jacob Zuma and the so-called Radical Economic Transformation faction of the ANC.

Opposition parties claimed that by invoking the so-called sub-judice rule, he was fuelling the narrative that there was something to hide, says a Cape Times report.

However, reports Business Day, DA leader John Steenhuisen did not mince his words about ‘the sordid mess’ and called on Ramaphosa to come clean on the matter.

He criticised the use of the PPU for Ramaphosa’s own business interests and said the cover-up was not the action of somebody who had broken no laws.

‘Every single day that these questions remain unanswered causes irreparable damage to the Presidency. Phala Phala is fast becoming your Nkandla and it is forever going to be an ugly stain on your Presidency,’ Steenhuisen told Ramaphosa.

Full Business Day report

Full Cape Times report