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Picture courtesy: (SABC news) Police arrested a fraudster who attempted to access President Ramaphosa’s inauguration at the Union buildings in Pretoria.
(The News)- Police have apprehended a Zimbabwean man who allegedly attempted to receive accreditation for the inauguration of president-elect Cyril Ramaphosa by using an identity document belonging to a deceased person.
The man in custody told police he had bought the ID card from a home affairs official and had been using it since 2000.
He was spotted by the State Security Agency, whose systems caught him during the vetting process.
The individual is said to have stated that he works for one of the service providers at the inauguration ceremony at the Union Buildings on Wednesday.
“The individual introduced himself at the accreditation centre and was on Monday trying to obtain accreditation. He said he works for a service provider. The system noticed that he was using an ID that belonged to a deceased person,” said police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe.
According to Mathe, he was immediately apprehended and is in police custody.
The individual is facing charges of fraud and infringement of the Immigration Act.She said the offence was serious and could lead to imprisonment or deportation.
She said police would investigate the cause of the death of the ID’s original owner to determine whether the person was killed to sell the document.
Mathe said police were searching for about 15 suspects who tried to storm the South African Electoral Commission’s warehouse in Booysens on Tuesday.
“They presented themselves in five cars and requested entry into the warehouse.
They wanted entry into the ballots to check if they had been counted. We registered a case of intimidation,” she said.
She added, “We are examining the footage and evidence to check who these people are affiliated with and if they belong to a political party.”
While leaders of South Africa’s Western trading partners will not attend Ramaphosa’s inauguration, African leaders travelled to take part in Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony.
Leaders of Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, Tanzania, and Uganda attended the inauguration.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also attended the ceremony.
ANC allies from Cuba and Palestine arrived on Tuesday. Relations with Western partners were strained during Ramaphosa’s first term in office, when, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he took on the EU and the United States, accusing the superpowers of hoarding vaccines.
He clashed with the United States in 2023 when Washington accused South Africa of supplying weapons to Russia during the Ukraine war.
This dispute could have jeopardised trade relations, including the African Growth and Opportunity Act extension.
US President Joe Biden and his EU counterpart congratulated Ramaphosa on his second term after last week’s election.
Ramaphosa is the fourth ANC president to rule the country since 1994.
Ramaphosa will select a new cabinet, which should include ANC partners, DA, IFP, PA, GOOD, and PAC when forming the executive. The DA aims to take positions in economic clusters and departments linked to service delivery.
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