Ramatlhodi’s wish that Zuma undergoes lie detector test ‘not possible’

Former mineral resources and public administration minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi has failed his bid to have former president Jacob Zuma undergo a lie detector test to prove claims he made at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that he was an apartheid spy.

Ramatlhodi told IOL that the commission did not have a provision to force witnesses who had come before it to do that, but that he should file an affidavit which would force Zuma to substantiate claims against him.

In July, Zuma branded Ramatlhodi a spy and accused him of lying when he told the commission that Zuma had auctioned the country off to the Gupta family.

Ramatlhodi denied the allegations after Zuma testified at the commission that he recruited Ramatlhodi while he was a student in Lesotho.

Zuma added that Ramatlhodi’s allegations against him before the commission were part of a ploy to have him “removed”.

The former president told the commission that the narrative that he was corrupt was part of a plan to “character assassinate” him because in the early 1990s he came across information about spies within the ANC.

Zuma said he had a list of those who were spies in the governing party. Some of these spies have given authors information to write books about him.

He said: “What made comrade Ngoako behave the way he did here saying that I’ve auctioned the country? Saying I do what I like? He’s carrying out an instruction.”

The former president further alleged that some of the spies had planned to assassinate him at the Gcwalisa iMabhida Stadium maskandi concert that took place in KwaZulu-Natal earlier last year.

“The only thing that saved my life was that I did not attend,” he said.

The former minister rubbished Zuma’s allegations as a “ridiculous lie” and challenged the former president to a lie detector test.

(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko, background reporting by Makhosandile Zulu)

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