Claim president handled with ‘kid gloves’ at capture inquiry
THE Commission of Inquiry into State Capture chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has been criticised for treating President Cyril Ramaphosa with “kid gloves” during his first appearance at the commission yesterday.
Ramaphosa was speaking at the commission as president of the ANC, where he faced questions on his party’s cadre deployment strategy. However, while most expected Ramaphosa to face tough and straight-forward questions about his knowledge of state capture and his intentions to deal with it, political analyst Bheki Mngomezulu said he was left disappointed with the commission.
Commenting on Ramaphosa’s appearance yesterday, Mngomezulu said evidence-leader advocate Paul Pretorius and Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo missed the opportunity to ask Ramaphosa questions about former President Jacob Zuma and his role in state capture.
“Ramaphosa was deputising for Jacob Zuma at that time, and he can answer many questions relating to that time. The whole exercise yesterday was a total waste of time. Ramaphosa was given a blank cheque to take his time and read his opening statement, which is not how the other witnesses were treated,” Mngomezulu said.
In his opening statement, Ramaphosa told the commission that although the phenomena of state capture is now widely known, the issue of whether it was real took time to be accepted and processed by the governing party.
Ramaphosa said the earliest instance the party got wind of the state capture phenomena was in 2011, during an ANC NEC meeting. This is where NEC member Fikile Mbalula brought.to light that he was told by the Guptas that he would be appointed as a minister. The president said, at that time, the issue of whether state capture existed and what it should be termed was widely contested within the ANC and in broader society.
Ramaphosa added that as other allegations involving the Gupta family surfaced about their involvement in the appointment of government officials, the discussion around state capture dominated ANC NEC meetings.
“The issue of state capture was hugely contested in the ANC, and what should be done contributed to divisions in ANC structures, including the NEC, the government and Parliament, as well as other areas of society,” he said. He said the corruption issue plagued the party, resulting in divisions over vote-buying and gatekeeping, and even in open conflict between factions of the party. And concerns about corruption grew ahead of the party’s 54 ANC conference in December 2017.
Ramaphosa will return to the witness stand today.