President Cyril Ramaphosa sent an employee from his farm, Ntaba Nyoni, to attend a cattle auction at “The Bull Ring”, in affiliation with Hurwitz farming, in Mpumalanga over the weekend.

The Boran stud he ended up purchasing cost him R500,000 – coincidentally the same amount Ramaphosa is accused of having received during his 2017 election campaign from corruption-accused Gavin Watson, the CEO of Bosasa (now African Global Operations).

Beeld reports that the bull Ramaphosa now owns is called Jameson, who weighs in at 940kg and is five years old. He is the brother of a heifer who sold for a record R300,000, which explains his rather steep price tag.

It is no secret that Ramaphosa has a penchant for the finer things in life, with his passion for African cattle breeds clearly palpable in his coffee table book called Cattle of Kings. His favourite are the Ankole, which hail from Uganda and are one of the most recently introduced cattle breeds in South Africa.

According to a blurb of his book, Ramaphosa is officially the largest Ankole breeder in the country. He also breeds Boran and Bonsmara.

Minister in the Presidency and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Jackson Mthembu announced on Tuesday that the party was happy with how its officials were dealing with matters relating to Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign for the presidency of the party.

This comes after emails were leaked to the media detailing correspondence in Ramaphosa’s presidential campaign.

Media reports over the past weekend claimed these were the emails Busisiwe Mkhwebane had relied upon to find Ramaphosa guilty of lying to parliament when claiming not to know about donations made to his campaign by state capture-linked firm Bosasa, or his son’s involvement. But Mkhwebane’s spokesperson Oupa Segalwe has since denied the emails leaked to News24 were those in her possession, or that she had even seen the correspondence in question.

Additional reporting by Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni

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