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Pityana defends Ramatlhodi after spy allegations

Sipho Pityana during an interview on SABC.
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The President of Business Unity South Africa (Busa) Sipho Pityana has defended former Public Service and Administration Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi after spy allegations by former President Jacob Zuma.

Zuma accused Ramatlhodi of being an apartheid spy in the 1980’s and told the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that he was recruited as a spy when he was a student in Lesotho.

Pityana said Zuma should have opposed Ramatlhodi’s African National Congress (ANC) leadership position at the appropriate time if he believed he was a spy.

Ramatlhodi previously told the Commission about Zuma’s supposedly toxic relationship with the Gupta’s and how he had auctioned off the country to the controversial family.

Pityana also described Zuma’s testimony as a cop-out.

He says, “Ngoako Ramatlhodi I’ve known him since the time when he was in Lesotho – where Zuma says he was recruited to be a spy. I have looked at his career progression in the liberation movement throughout that period when Zuma says he was the head of intelligence. But Zuma says he saw him betraying the ANC’s MK and even being sent to Russia, etc…”

“What I am saying is the President, who was in the leadership structure of the ANC throughout that time, had the opportunity to object at that time that someone who was a spy, shouldn’t be put in those positions. It’s a cop-out,” he adds.

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