DA wants Mkhize to appear before Zondo over alleged Prasa kickbacks

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called upon Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to summon the Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize to testify before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture regarding allegations of Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) kickbacks for the ANC.

It has been alleged that Mkhize, when he was the ANC’s treasurer-general, facilitated payments to the party from a beneficiary of the R3.5 billion Prasa trains contract.

The trains were allegedly too big and did not fit Prasa’s railways, said DA MP Natasha Mazzone.

According to Scorpio and Daily Maverick, former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana claimed that Mkhize had nominated bank accounts which Maria Gomes had to pay money into for the benefit of the ANC.

“This apparently happened on a number occasions when the minister visited Gomes’s home with Montana,” Mazzone said in a statement on Monday.

It was further alleged that Montana had insistedon assurances that the payments by Gomes and Swifambo Rail Leasing (firm that won the contract) director, Auswell Mashaba, to the ANC were simply donations and not kickbacks from the deal.

“It is imperative that these allegations be investigated thoroughly, especially since there seems to be financial records that indicate the opposite,” she said

Mazzone claimed that that it was “no longer a shock to anybody” that the country’s resources were “being bled dry”.

“The extent of brazen involvement by ministers and senior politicians within the ANC is very upsetting.

“The economic crisis, the rampant hunger and hopelessness, the rising joblessness and growing crime rates can all be directly linked to state capture and the rotten core of the ANC that is increasingly being exposed.

“After Covid-19 corruption became so obvious that President Cyril Ramaphosa could no longer ignore it, he claimed to have drawn a ‘line in the sand’ regarding corruption,” she added.

Mazzone further said that Ramaphosa needed to ensure that allegations against Mkhize were investigated.

“Unless the corrupt are held to account and suffer the consequences of their actions, South Africa will continue to sink beneath the tsunami of crime and the once-proud rainbow nation will be nothing more than an Atlantean-legend,” she concluded.

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