‘Zuma and Ramaphosa must appear before state capture commission’

The Democratic Alliance (DA) wants former state and African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma and his successor Cyril Ramaphosa to appear at the state capture inquiry to divulge the roles they allegedly played.

In a statement on Wednesday, the main opposition’s chief whip, John Steenhuisen, said since Zuma and Ramaphosa had been at the helm of the governing party at the height of state capture, the two should be made to account.

Steenhuisen added that current and former ministers implicated in the state capture should also be called to testify at the commission chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

The DA named the ministers as:

• Former minister of mineral resources Mosebenzi Zwane, who allegedly helped the Guptas defraud the Estina Dairy Farm project as Free State MEC for agriculture;
• Current minister of home affairs, Malusi Gigaba, who facilitated the early naturalisation of the Guptas;
• Former minister of finance, Des van Rooyen, who Jonas confirmed was appointed to replace axed Nhlanhla Nene to allegedly fast-track the nuclear build deal;
• Former minister of public enterprises Lynne Brown, whose tenure coincided with the large-scale looting of state-owned entities;
• Former SARS commissioner Tom Moyane, whose disastrous tenure at the tax-collecting agency coincided with the disabling of SARS’s investigative capacity and plummeting revenue collection; and
• The former head of the State Security Agency, Arthur Fraser, and his political principal, David Mahlobo, who allegedly used the agency to target those who resisted the state capture project.

“Furthermore, we cannot allow the Zondo commission to overlook the evidence of state capture at metro level. Indeed, the cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay were all looted during the height of state capture. The DA is able and willing to provide the commission with all the evidence we uncovered after taking over these metros in 2016,” Steenhuisen said.

The party said it welcomed the early progress made by the commission and would keenly monitor its progress to ensure that the full extent of state capture was laid bare.

“We commend those who have already testified before the commission, notably former deputy minister of finance Mcebisi Jonas. Indeed, his explosive testimony on 24 August confirmed what the DA knew already: that South Africa’s law enforcement agencies were captured and that complaints laid against those involved in state capture, specifically those lodged by the DA, were purposefully sabotaged or neglected by those tasked with investigating them,” the statement read.

The DA said it was important to remember that it was the former public protector, Adv Thuli Madonsela, and not the ANC, who instructed Zuma to appoint, within 30 days, a commission of inquiry headed by a judge solely selected by the chief justice in her State of Capture report released in October 2016.

“It has taken an enormous amount of time and work to get to this point, and we cannot allow the Zondo commission to leave any stones unturned. There can be no holy cows.”

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