Picture File: President Cyril Ramaphosa at the State Capture Commission in Braamfontein on 28 April 2021. Picture: Neil McCartney
President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to return to the State Capture Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday morning.
This follows the president’s last appearance at the Commission in April, in which he testified in his capacity as the president of the governing ANC.
ALSO READ: Ramaphosa ‘never privy to CR17 campaign financial records’
During his appearance at the Commission on Wednesday, Ramaphosa will be quizzed about his roles as the country’s then-deputy president under President Jacob Zuma’s presidency. He will also face questions on his role as the country’s current president.
Ramaphosa is scheduled to testify at the Commission both on Wednesday and Thursday.
Proceedings are expected to get underway at 9am.
Here’s a brief recap of Ramaphosa’s last appearance at the Commission:
During his last appearance in April, Ramaphosa faced questions on the ANC’s cadre deployment committee that deploys its members to government and state-owned entities (SOEs).
Ramaphosa was the chair of the committee when he was the country’s then-deputy president.
He defended the committee, saying it was required to build capacity in the public service now more than ever before.
Ramaphosa also suggested that some senior officials appointed to SOEs and law enforcement agencies during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure in office were not scrutinised by the cadre deployment committee.
Ramaphosa said that in hindsight, the ANC would not have knowingly accepted donations from corruption-accused company, Bosasa.
The State Capture Commission’s evidence leader, advocate Paul Pretorius, asked him about why the ANC continued to receive millions in donations and benefits from Bosasa despite the company being under investigation for contracts awarded to it by government departments under suspicious circumstances.
Ramaphosa said the ANC would have not “knowingly and intentionally accepted donations from companies or donors who have been involved in criminal activity”.
Ramaphosa conceded during his last appearance at the Commission that Parliament had the ability to investigate allegations of state capture levelled against the Gupta family.
He told the commission although the ANC did not have the capacity to investigate allegations of state capture at the time, Parliament could have investigated the veracity of the claims against Zuma and the Guptas that had been in the public domain for more than five years, particularly the infamous Gupta leaks.
Ramaphosa said the ANC’s decision in 2016 calling on its members to provide information about alleged state capture activities to law enforcement authorities was not a cop-out from it dealing with the allegations.
Ramaphosa stuck to his guns that he was never privy to the financial records of his 2017 ANC presidential campaign, known as the CR17 campaign.
Taking the stand at the Commission, he reiterated his claim the CR17 campaign managers took a deliberate decision to shield him from the financial contributions of his donors.
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