President Cyril Ramaphosa says he takes full responsibility and will not run away from the choices and actions he made while he was second in charge under former President Jacob Zuma.
This came out on the President’s second day at the Zondo Commission.
Ramaphosa also dealt with evidence relating to state security agency and defended his decision to take charge of the Ministry of State Security and rejected the notion that he is amassing power in order to deal with his enemies.
On his last day giving testimony Ramaphosa’s evidence was about what happened when he was second in charge.
Ramaphosa says his decision to remain the deputy President under Zuma in government and in the African National Congress (ANC) was intended to change the balance of forces in the party from corruption and to renewal.
In the video below Prof, Barry Hanyane reflects on Ramaphosa’s testimony:
A number of options
On Wednesday Ramaphosa revealed that during his tenure as a deputy he had a number of options when he found out about state capture, and amongst to resign.
In his closing statement, the President says he takes full responsibility for the action he took while he was deputy
Ramaphosa says him not resigning doesn’t mean he was scared to lose his job as deputy president
Super Presidency
Dealing with state security Agency evidence the President ridiculed the idea that he is creating a “super-Presidency” or instituting a move towards dictatorship by taking state security into his office.
“Others may even suggest that they have even said so that the President is amassing all power in his hands and he is going to use state security against his enemies. I am not wired in that way. I am not geared in that way. As we professionalise State security we will want officers who will swear allegiance to the constitution and not the President.”
Radical Economic Transformation
Commenting on Radical Economic Transformation or RET as it is popularly known, the President said it has been bastardized and turned into a mere slogan. Ramaphosa added that the substance of transforming the socio-economic circumstances of the people is not what RET now represents.
He says it has been turned into a shield for a faction within the ANC that does wrong things.
“It became a political type of figment and labelling that then descended into people doing really wrong things and hiding behind the shield of what they now term themselves as RET forces which have been doing things that really go against the grain and the policy positions of the ANC.”
Meanwhile, in his closing remarks, the President applauded all those who stood up against state capture to ensure that there is a commission of such which will ensure that such doesn’t happen again. –Additional reporting Busi Chimombe
In the video below the President gives his closing remarks:
