Facebook nudes embarrass Auditor General candidate
Prospective Auditor-General (AG), Avhashoni Ramikosi has been embarrassed by his Facebook posts depicting strong political views, half-naked women, and sexually suggestive cartoons.
Ramikosi is a senior auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and one of six candidates interviewed by MPs to potentially succeed current AG Terence Nombembe.
DA MP John Steenhuisen visited Ramikosi’s Facebook page, discovering he’d expressed “quite strong political views”.
Ramikosi was asked how he would ensure political independence for the AG office. Ramikosi, who admitted to being a branch-level activist, said he would recuse himself from political participation, but added it’s important for democracy to have young people involved in political discussions.
This prompted journalists to visit his Facebook page, where they discovered a number of potentially controversial postings.
According to the Sunday Times (8 September 2013):
In one cartoon, a woman with a raised dress to reveal a big derriere instructs her partner to kneel and beg for sex.
In another picture, four young girls pose with their breasts exposed and with prices superimposed on their bodies, while they proclaim in Tsonga, “Hixavisa mirhi (Our bodies are for sale).”
In one Facebook “status update” Ramikosi makes a mockery of the establishment of Mamphela Ramphele’s Agang, asking what the black middle class had to say about the party’s emergence and whether Agang was just another “wasted space just like COPE”.
Steenhuisen told the Sunday Times he felt the pictures were inappropriate. “If you are applying for a job like auditor general, you have to be above reproach, you know. It’s one of those positions where you have to be squeaky clean, because any inference that you are not could impact on the credibility of a supreme body of the country,” said Steenhuisen.
The Sunday Times approached Ramikosi for comment, to which he responded:
“It’s rather unfortunate but there was no malice intended. One of my friends tagged me and it landed on my page, but I do understand that it might raise questions about integrity.”
“But it’s a lesson that one can never be too careful. It’s been an enlightening experience for me. What I do know is that my ethics and integrity are not questionable at all.”
“I did not know that one day I was going to come here and apply for this position which would conflict my political views. Early in the week somebody warned me that I must change my settings to that of private,” he said.
Sources: Sunday Times, City Press (8 September 2013)
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