Zondo allowed to fix mistakes on State Capture report, court rules

Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has been given the greenlight to make slight amendments to the State Capture report.

Zondo, who chaired the State Capture Commission, approached the Pretoria High Court in August seeking approval to fix mistakes in the report, which included numerous grammatical and language errors and wrong figures.

The court has since granted the Chief Justice permission to make the changes, according to TimesLIVE.

In a judgment delivered by Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba on Wednesday, the court ruled that corrected versions of two volumes of the report may be delivered to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

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This must be done by 10 October.

Zondo has also been given permission to add an analysis of the evidence of two witnesses, which was unintentionally left out in the final report.

At the time he went to court, the Chief Justice insisted that the corrections would prejudice nobody, and they would be in the public interest, adding that the mistakes in the report were due to exhaustion.

The Citizen previously reported that the commission – which has spent more than R1 billion – has collected over 100 000 pages in submissions from more than 300 witnesses ever since the inquiry began its work in 2018.

‘Political will’

Last month, Ramaphosa told MPs that the “political will” was there to deliver the final report to Parliament on time.

The president has to submit the state capture report on 22 October, and also has to present an action plan for implementation of the report’s 358 recommendations.

“We are looking to see how it touches on our own implementation deadlines, [but] the implementation plan is being finalised. The political will is there.

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“When we bring the implementation plan to parliament that is when the will of the government will become clear that indeed we are serious and we have the will to do so,” he said during a Q&A session on 29 September.

He further said the plan would indicate which recommendations have been prioritised for implementation.

“The work that is currently underway, to consider these recommendations, does not mean that we have been waiting for the tabling of this response plan to start the process of implementation of recommendations made by the commission,” Ramaphosa continued.

Parliament

Meanwhile, Parliament has already begun establishing “appropriate systems” to process and oversee the implementation of Zondo’s reports.

The Joint Ethics Committee, in May, was directed to investigate possible contraventions of the parliamentary code of conduct during the state capture era.

This applies to current members, who were serving in Parliament when any alleged transgressions took place.

Ramaphosa has already submitted the third and fourth volume of the state capture reports to Parliament.

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