Zuma corruption case resurfaces
Not long ago, former South African president Jacob Zuma seemed untouchable, but the corruption case he escaped on the eve of the 2009 parliamentary election has resurfaced after prosecutors reinstated charges against him, giving new life to a case that has haunted him for years.
Zuma’s party, the African National Congress, went on to win the 2009 election and voted him in as president, ushering in nearly nine years of chaotic governance and corruption. He was ousted by the ANC last month as president.
State prosecutors announced yesterday that charges against Zuma relating to a US$2.5 billion arms deal in the late 1990s would be reinstated.
National prosecutions chief Shaun Abrahams said the charges had a reasonable chance of succeeding. The former leader faces 16 criminal counts related to 783 payments that have been challenged as corrupt.
Abrahams said Zuma wrongdoing.
The announcement follows more than a decade of controversy over the arms deal and many twists along the way.
Some saw the ANC’s decision to elect Zuma as party president in 2007 – despite allegations of corruption against him – as a misstep that led to years of poor governance, political patronage and deepening corruption.
As president, Zuma was criticised for allowing a powerful business family, the Guptas, to land government deals and contracts benefiting their businesses. The Guptas boasted they had the power the hire and fire ministers, according to ANC lawmakers who said they were offered posts and bribes in return for favouring Gupta business interests.
The Hawks, a special South African police unit that investigates high-priority cases such as fraud and corruption, is investigating 30 cases involving denied national government departments and 360 cases involving provincial government officials, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee says.
The charges against Zuma have a long and twisted history. He was deputy president in 1999 when the arms deal was made.
Zuma was fired as deputy president in 2005 after his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was found guilty of fraud and corruption, related to the arms deal and his relationship with Zuma.
Zuma was charged in the corruption case in 2007, two years after Shaik’s conviction, a development that seemed to close out his chances of becoming South Africa’s president. But just weeks before the 2009 election, the charges were abruptly dropped. Later that year, the opposition Democratic Alliance asked that the decision to drop the charges be reviewed by the courts.
In 2016, the High Court found that the decision to drop the charges was irrational and ordered that they be reinstated. Last year, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld that ruling.
Zuma has mounted repeated court actions and appeals, designed to stave off the charges, and South African taxpayers have spent US$1.26 million on Zuma’s legal fees, according to comments made by President Cyril Ramaphosa.