Sudanese businessman Hazim Mustafa was recognized because the buyer of 20 buffalo by President Cyril Ramaphosa. He reportedly paid in exhausting money, and the cash remained on the Phala Phala sport farm for about 45 days earlier than it was stolen from a sofa.
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BUFALLO BUYER COMES INTO THE FORE
The Dubai-based businessman instructed Sky News that he had no thought the animals belonged to the President and that he negotiated the acquisition via a dealer working at Phala Phala.
In his solutions to the Public Protector, which the Section 89 Independent Panel thought of, Ramaphosa mentioned US$580 000 (about R10 million) was stolen from his farm in February 2020.
Hazim confirmed that he bought the animals in money over the festive interval in 2019. He instructed Sky News that he was in Limpopo to rejoice Christmas and his spouse’s birthday and that he introduced the money via the airport as a result of “$580 000 is nothing for a businessman like [him].”
READ: ‘$580k is nothing for a businessman like me’ – Ramaphosa’s buffalo buyer says he introduced the money via the airport
HAZIM MUSTAFA’S WIFE IS A SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN
According to his Facebook web page and information experiences, Hazim’s spouse is a South African lady named Bianca O’Donoghue.
O’Donoghue reportedly comes from KwaZulu-Natal. Her social media pages recommend she leads a lavish lifetime of unimaginable wealth.
According to News24, the couple had been married at Lake Como, Italy, in 2018, and O’Donoghue seems to be an worker of a Dubai financial institution.
Hazim Mustafa served because the President of Al Merrikh Sporting Club. The Sudanese soccer membership is primarily based in Omdurman and was established in 1908.
It seems that he nonetheless serves because the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the soccer membership. In November 2022, he introduced that he would not compete within the membership’s upcoming presidential elections.
According to a biography of the businessman seemingly ready for his electoral marketing campaign, he was born in Egypt however grew up in Bahri City, and his begin in companies kicked off with the commerce of fertilisers and other agricultural items.
His father, Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim, was as soon as a member of the Al Merrikh board, and Hazim began following the membership due to his father and uncle’s involvement.
TIES WITH OMAR AL-BASHIR AND ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION
Hazim allegedly has ties with the previous President of Sudan, the dictator Omar Al-Bashir, who was deposed in a coup d’etat in 2019. This was reported in 2017 by the net information outlet Monte Carro.
The publication mentioned authorities within the United Arab Emirates had frozen Hazim’s property and financial institution accounts as a part of an investigation into his enterprise accomplice, in accordance to News24.
A 2021 letter from Al Merrikh to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) additionally mentions that Hazim Mustafa “is attached to criminal complaints inside Sudan related to financial corruption, money laundering, waste of public funds and violation of the law on financial and accounting procedures in Sudan for the year 2007.”
According to the letter, the ethics committee of the Sudanese Football Association suspended its affiliation with the soccer membership till the costs had been acquitted.
There was a tussle over the management of the soccer membership, with the Sudanese Football Association wanting Mustafa’s council, which was elected in 2021, to be eliminated.
It boiled down to the truth that two elections had been held on the identical day by separate common assemblies on 4 September 2021. Mr Adam Abdallah was elected as President of the Board of Directors on the election held in Al Merrikh Stadium. Mustafa Hazim was elected as President of a board chosen at Al Mawrada Park.
The CAS ruled in favour of the membership in February 2022 and unfroze Mustafa’s council, however as beforehand talked about, he opted not to run for President this yr.
In 2021, the Al-Hadatha newspaper reported that Mustafa was allegedly one in every of three businessmen concerned in large-scale corruption through the time of the previous regime in Sudan.
RAMAPHOSA REMAINS ON THE HOOK
As beforehand reported, Hazim’s assertion solutions some questions raised by the Independent Panel however does nothing to diminish the costs Ramaphosa faces.
The panel’s report mentioned there was prima facie proof that Ramaphosa violated his constitutional oath and broke anti-corruption legal guidelines by failing to report the theft. The panel additionally put ahead that the President’s sport farming constituted paid work.
Ramaphosa allegedly instructed his Presidential Protection Unit to examine the theft as a substitute of reporting it to the police.
On Monday, the President approached the Constitutional Court to have the report put aside as illegal.
Parliament was set to debate the matter on Tuesday, however it was delayed by per week after the Chief Whips determined that the home members should be bodily current for the vote.
The National Assembly will convene within the Cape Town City Hall on Tuesday, 13 December, for the talk. If the report is adopted, Ramaphosa will face an impeachment inquiry. The ANC has instructed its MPs to vote towards the report when the matter is heard.
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