President Cyril Ramaphosa will appear before the Zondo Commission on Wednesday, testifying about his time as Deputy President under former President Jacob Zuma.
President Ramaphosa will start by completing his testimony that begun at the end of April this year, regarding his tenure as leader of the African National Congress (ANC).
Then, he had conceded that the party had not done enough to tackle the phenomenon of state capture, and dealt with matters relating to the party’s cadre deployment policy as well as party discipline over its members of parliament.
In his opening statement in April, Ramaphosa said the party did not take much notice when the phenomenon of state capture was first raised by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula at a 2011 National Executive Committee meeting.
In the video below, State Capture Commission announced that President Ramaphosa will be in the hot seat:
Then Mbalula said he had been informed by Ajay Gupta of his cabinet appointment before it took place.
Ramaphosa said subsequent interventions by then-Parliamentary Whip, the late Jackson Mthembu, and then-Secretary General Gwede Mantashe, were inadequate.
“It had shortcomings in living up to the expectations of the people of South Africa in relation to enforcing accountability and engendering a culture of effective consequence management as the leadership of the ANC duly elected at the 54th Conference. We acknowledge these shortcomings as an organisation.”
He said he was not aware of a number of appointments made to SOE boards by the former President.
“We were not alive to the fact that there was state capture and that there was something horribly wrong going on so some of these appointments would have happened in that course of time with hindsight then became aware that there was a common thread and if you joined the dots you discovered that there was really something amiss going on.”
Ramaphosa is likely to be questioned far more closely this time on matters pertaining to his role as Deputy President since 2014 under then-President Zuma.
Political analyst Ralph Mathegka says: “Some controversial decisions have been made in government that need to be explained in relation to state-owned entities like Eskom, the purchasing and procurement of coal those are decisions that actually happened at the time when he was in charge of government.
Business relating to questions relating to Eskom and the power challenges we are confronted with within government. So I think he is going to face very specific questions relating to how much he knew. What did he make of what he knew and what did he make of some of the decisions that were made in government at the time.”
Mathegka says that pleading complete ignorance on Ramaphosa’s part will not cut it.
“He was an insider at the time he cannot say he was an outsider, he did not know one way or another he is going to have to concede. If he does not concede to some of the decisions that he knows, that he should have done better or perhaps he should have registered his concern with some decisions. He will just come out as being very very calculative.”
Ramaphosa will also likely face further scrutiny with regards to his ANC presidential campaign in 2017, the details of which remain sealed after his victory in the Pretoria High court last month.
In April, he continued to insist that the CR17 fund managers did not tell him who donated campaign money as they did not want him to be beholden to donors.
Mathegka says the Inquiry will be incomplete if it does not pursue the matter this week.
“When you look at the CR17 campaign it’s a lot of money that the President doesn’t see, a political obligation to openly declare who funded him and what was the expectation. He won a legal battle but he did not win a political battle in my view. One way or the other if you are going to explain the role of money in decision-making which involves mega-deals, which involve how policy can benefit certain groups those questions will have to come out.”
SABC Political reporter, Ntlantla Kgatlhane compiled the report in the video below:
