State capture report ‘a serious indictment on Ramaphosa and members of Cabinet’, says DA 

The DA says the fourth part of the state capture commission’s report is a serious indictment on President Cyril Ramaphosa and members of his Cabinet, for “supposedly turning a blind eye” while the country was being robbed blind by the Guptas, with former president Jacob Zuma as the “mafia boss”.

The official opposition party said Ramaphosa – who was Zuma’s deputy from 2014 to 2018 – as well as Cabinet ministers’ often repeated claim that they did not know what was happening during state capture is dishonest.

The Presidency on Friday released the fourth instalment of the state capture commission’s report, which dealt with Eskom, National Treasury, EOH Holdings and the controversial Free State asbestos project.

The report by the commission’s chairperson, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, made damning findings against Zuma and former Eskom top executives Brian Molefe, Matshela Koko, and Anoj Singh, among others.

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It found that they played a key role in the capture of the power utility. The report also said the governing ANC should be “ashamed” for allowing the looting and wanton mismanagement at Eskom to happen under its watch.

‘Clear evidence of criminal conspiracy’

DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone said the commission’s findings reaffirmed the party’s call that all those who have been implicated in state capture, should be criminally charged for corruption and acts of sabotage against the state. 

But Mazzone said despite the clear evidence of criminal conspiracy outlined in Zondo’s reports, the DA was not holding its breath that the recommended criminal prosecutions would be carried out by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

She said to date, 1,438 people had been implicated in state capture but no one had been held accountable for the part that they played in stealing from South Africans.

“Still, this will not stop the DA from ensuring that all the implicated parties in state capture have their day in court,” Mazzone said in a statement. 

DA writes to Parliament

She said the DA had written to the chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services to request that the NPA be brought before it to account for its lack of prosecutions to date.

Mazzone said Zondo’s report laid out in clear detail how criminal collusion within the ANC, Cabinet, ANC deployees and the Guptas conspired to capture Eskom.

“The Zondo commission has today confirmed that the ANC is not fit to govern as it has essentially degenerated into a criminal enterprise.

“South Africans will not accept more empty platitudes on fighting corruption. What the country needs is active prosecutorial action against the architects of state capture.”

The commission’s report is damning for the 2014 Eskom board and the ANC – particularly Zuma and his cabinet – who were under the influence of a private, foreign family, whose sole interest was fleecing South Africa’s coffers for private interests.

“South Africans thought that the ANC government was in control of Eskom but it was not. It had relinquished the control to the Guptas and those people the Guptas wanted,” read the report.

The report further questioned the ANC’s role in state capture, because both Ramaphosa and ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe “made clear in their oral evidence” the party is entitled to have a say on who is appointed to state-owned entities’ boards and as CEOs.

Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe. Additional reporting by Narissa Subramoney

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