‘Enablers’ must be held accountable

How he has managed to stop himself from bursting out laughing on numerous occasions – when witnesses have offered their illogical, silly explanations, or feigned sudden memory loss – is beyond us.

Yet, even Zondo had to admit yesterday, during the evidence of Transnet board chairman Mafika Mkwanazi’, that during his 24 years on the bench, he had never encountered anything so astounding. Mkwanazi said the board had let the former group chief executive officer of the state-owned enterprise, Siyabonga Gama, off the hook on paying a high court cost order amounting to almost R426,000.

Not only that, the board agreed to pay him back pay amounting to more than R13 million, as well as picking up a large chunk of his legal expenses for various actions in which they, Transnet, had been his opponents – even though they were not compelled to do so.

In total, the “sweetheart” deals and payments with Gama saw him pocketing about R17 million, according to Zondo. Mkwanazi ducked, dived and evaded until it was clear he had nowhere else to run and agreed when Zondo asked him whether it would be fair to legally recover the money paid to Gama from the board members in their personal capacity.

That concession was important because defending the indefensible can wear down a witness … but also because it shows the way Zondo is thinking. It should be only fair that the “enablers” should be held accountable.

And they should pay, from their own pockets, rather than be allowed to utter nonsense in evidence to the commission and then disappear.

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