Zuma must prove his hands are clean

The documents purportedly led the then acting national director of public prosecutions Moketedi Mpshe to drop the charges against Zuma, paving way for him to become President.

On Wednesday, the opposition party asked the Pretoria High Court to compel current NPA acting director Nomgcobo Jiba to release the documents and recordings. Judgement has been reserved.

Jiba had failed to comply with a March 2012 Supreme Court of Appeal order that gave her 14 days to release the recordings. Jiba argued releasing them would be breaching the confidentiality as Zuma had not agreed.

Millions of South Africans share the DA’s belief that the recordings will reveal why the charges against Zuma were dropped.

Therefore it doesn’t require an advocate, judge or NPA head to know that the tapes are of public interest. South Africans have the right to know that the hands of the man who leads them are clean.

Zuma’s legal team argued the tapes were excluded from the items to be handed over as they were part of the protected, confidential disclosures.

Typically, the matter is turning into a legal wrangle. But the honourable, simple, obvious and most easiest thing to do would be to release the tapes and let the nation decide whether or not the President had a case to answer back in 2009.

Zuma has not helped the situation, ducking and diving from the corruption allegations since they first resurfaced when he was deputy president to former president Thabo Mbeki a few years ago.

He now has a chance to save himself some precious money in legal fee, set the record straight and prove that the charges against him were withdrawn without underhand tactics or political influence, failure of which will mean he will forever be the leader with questionable rise to the throne. After all, people who have something to hide often duck and dive and hope everyone will forget about their alleged wrongdoings. But to be forgiven, people have to first confess their sins.