Zuma’s attack on Zondo Commission ‘ridiculous’ – Legal expert

A quick Google search of Duduzane Zuma’s name is all it takes to put paid to his father’s latest claim his children have not been implicated at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. One of the first hits is a video of Duduzane testifying before the commission last October – after former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas implicated him.

In August 2018, Jonas told the commission Duduzane had driven him to the Guptas’ home in Saxonwold where he had been offered the position of minister and R600 million in exchange for his influence.

Duduzane vehemently denied the allegations but his mere appearance at the inquiry flies in the face of the charged statement his father, former president Jacob Zuma, issued on Friday.

Zuma tore into the commission’s investigators following a report recently they had issued subpoenas for the bank statements of “at least 20 accounts linked to the Zuma family” – including a TV production company owned by Zuma’s daughter, Gugulethu Zuma-Ncube.

In addition to claiming his children had, so far, “not been served with any notices indicating that they are in any way implicated by any witnesses selected by the commission”, Zuma in his three-and-a-half-page response also said the commission’s terms of reference “make it clear that I, and not my children, am central to the investigation of the commission”.

This, too, is simply not the case. Former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s “State of Capture report” – on the back of which the commission was established – mentioned Duduzane by name no less than 14 times.

And the terms of reference, the commission is tasked with looking into “in particular, whether any member of the National Executive [including the president], public official, a functionary of any organ of state influenced the awarding of tenders to benefit themselves, their families or entities in which they held a personal interest”.

Zuma at one point in his statement labelled the investigations in question “unlawful”.But legal expert advocate Paul Hoffman described this as“ ludicrous ”.

Zuma in his statement charged if his children were being investigated, “they should be notified so that they can exercise their rights like any other implicated person”.

But, as Hoffman explained yesterday, to notify someone he/she was under investigation ahead of time would be a self-defeating strategy because it would provide him/her with an opportunity to hide any potential evidence.

Hoffman also pointed out that part of the commission’s mandate was to recover state funds which had been looted.

“If the children are innocent, they have nothing to fear at all because the documentary evidence from the banks under subpoena will reveal nothing,” Hoffman said. “But if it does reveal they’re the recipients of loot, then they have committed a crime and are responsible for paying back the proceeds of that crime.”

Hoffman described Zuma’s latest attack on the commission – which comes less than a month after he announced he would not appear until an application for commission chair Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to recuse himself had been heard – as nothing more than “the desperate gyrations of a fallen man”.

Political analyst Dr Ralph Mathekga said yesterday the former president would have to be “dragged to the commission by his ears”.“He does not believe he has anything to answer to,” Mathekga said. – bernadettew@citizen.co.za

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