Dukwana spills beans on corruption
Former Free State MEC implicates ANC secretary-general and others in explosive testimony at inquiry
FORMER Free State economic development MEC Mxolisi Dukwana continued to dish out explosive evidence at the state capture inquiry and is expected to implicate over 30 individuals and entities in his testimony.
He returned to the inquiry yesterday to give evidence in which he has implicated ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, ANC national executive committee member and former Cabinet minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Gupta associate Iqbal Sharma, former national police commissioner George Fivaz and Mangaung mayor Olly Mlamleli.
Dukwana told the commission that there was a reason Magashule was taking up his defamation lawsuit against Buyisile Ngqulana, the man who claims Magashule played a key role in the formation of the African Transformation Movement to take on the governing party in the May 8 general elections.
“He knows he will never lose a court case in Bloemfontein (in the Free State High Court),” Dukwana said.
He said the judiciary in the Free State was compromised like the province’s police, from the lowest to the highest rank. “That perception is rife in the Free State.”
He said some of the province’s judges were compromised, with others or their spouses doing business with the provincial government.
Commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo asked South Africans with knowledge of the Free State’s compromised judiciary to approach the commission of inquiry probing state capture with information.
The plea followed Dukwana’s explosive testimony yesterday.
Dukwana also challenged Magashule to act on his threats to take legal action against him for his testimony at the state capture inquiry.
In April, after Dukwana gave evidence, Magashule indicated that he intended to take him to court over his testimony.
However, Dukwana said his legal team had not informed him of any lawsuit from Magashule’s since April.
After a lengthy delay in resuming his evidence yesterday, due to lawyer Mike Hellens’s objection to Dukwana identifying one of his clients in his testimony, the former ANC Free State provincial treasurer continued dropping bombshells.
Hellens has previously appeared for the controversial Gupta family at the commission.
Justice Zondo also repeated his concern that he had expected many directors-general, their deputies and other officials to come to the commission, but few had taken up his offer.
Justice Zondo asked: “Why are there so few people who are prepared to stand for the truth?”
Dukwana said in the period of over two decades in which Magashule led the ANC in the Free State and nine years that he was premier, he developed something of a cult in the province. He said he was coming out to reveal all due to ANC members’ failure to deal with the matter.
“I feel we failed the people of the Free State by not acting when we were supposed to act,” he added.
Dukwana is scheduled to continue testifying today.
The judiciary in the Free State was compromised
like the province’s police, from the lowest to the highest rank