Former Chairperson of the State Capture Commission and Chief Justice Raymond Zondo says state capture has placed the country’s democracy at risk.
Delivering the keynote address at the colloquium hosted by the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria on the future of South Africa’s democracy after the State Capture Commission, Zondo warns against other forms of state capture that do not include the capture of all three arms of the state.
This event aimed to observe the anniversary of the handing over of volumes four and five of the State Capture report last year.
Zondo says, “The influence of a head of state for the interests of only a few amounts to state capture. The capture of the state does not require that all three arms of state be captured. If an individual or group of individuals have as strong an influence on the head of state as did the Guptas, and that influence is used not for the head of state to make decisions that are lawful and serve the interests of the people, but that serve the interests of only some individuals or a group of individuals or entities, then that, in my view, is still state capture.”
VIDEO: HSRC hosts colloquium with Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on State Capture Commission
The Chairperson of the State Capture Commission says he fears that there will be no implementation of the recommendations of the report with an election year looming.
“Just as it happened before, it can still happen because we have not put measures in place that could prevent it from happening. So, until we put in place such measures, it can happen. We have got in the report various recommendations that we have made, and we are still waiting for implementation. I think, in regard to some, there is some work that is happening, but one would have thought that a year after the Commission’s final report, that much would have happened. And my fear is that since next year is an election year, soon government, members of parliament, politicians will start campaigning for next year’s elections, and we might not see a lot of implementation of the recommendations.” he explains.
