Zuma faces racketeering, fraud and corruption charges as looting abates
Former South African president in court after jailing over unrelated matters sparked riots
FAST cars in exchange for jets, elite government officials on the take, and a sprawling home funded by ill-gotten gains – some of the allegations when Jacob Zuma, the former South African president, appears by videolink at the KwaZulu Natal high court tomorrow.
It will be Mr Zuma’s first appearance since imprisonment on unrelated contempt of court charges last Thursday triggered riots bringing the province to the brink of a humanitarian crisis and South Africa’s ruling party to a schism.
The looting and arson is mostly over. But as soldiers fan out across Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal to keep the fragile peace, and people pick up the pieces of their shattered communities, attention turns to the political fallout.
The most immediate consequence is a split in the African National Congress that is likely to spell the end of Nelson Mandela’s party as we have known it for 27 years, even if the riots concentrate party power in the hands of Cyril Ramaphosa supporters.
“The ANC as we know it will never get 50 per cent of the vote again. So the Zuma insurrection failed and the ANC camp behind Ramaphosa has the momentum,” said Prof William Gumede, from the School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg.
And the court case in Pietermaritzburg, a city shattered by the rioting, is a lightning rod for Mr Zuma’s supporters and critics. Mr Zuma is facing 16 charges of fraud, corruption, racketeering and money-laundering. He could be sentenced to 25 years in jail if convicted.
He is accused of accepting more than 700 bribes in a 10-year period before he became president in 2009 – including a 500,000 rand (£25,100) annual retainer from Thales, a French defence firm, when he was deputy president.
That money, prosecutors allege, was in exchange for political influence and protecting the French arms giant from close scrutiny of its role in a controversial multi-billion dollar arms deal signed in 1999. Mr Zuma has pleaded not guilty. Allies say the charges are politically
‘We only needed more equipment for a larger army, and that stuff could be made in South Africa’
motivated. Thales, a co-accused in the case, denies knowledge of wrongdoing. It said: “Thales South Africa has prepared for the trial and is confident in the outcome. The company firmly denies the accusations against it.”
Legally, recent events on the streets make no difference to the case. But politically, the chaos has dramatically raised the stakes. Last week’s mayhem began after Mr Zuma began a 15-month jail term for refusing to testify in front of the State Capture Commission chaired by the deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, which is investigating separate allegations of corruption under his 2009-2018 presidency.
There are widespread suspicions that allies of Mr Zuma orchestrated the violence to force his release from jail and make the country ungovernable for the rival ANC faction around president Ramaphosa. Mr Zuma’s allies vigorously deny such a conspiracy. “President Zuma has done everything to ensure there was peace. He is a man of peace and does not want violence,” said Mzwanele Manyi, a spokesman for the Jacob Zuma Foundation
Nonetheless, the smooth running of the trial will now be seen as test of whether South Africa’s judicial system will be brow-beaten by flagrant intimidation. The case against Mr Zuma and Thales represents a small part of the alleged corruption surrounding South Africa’s biggest purchase of arms.
The 1999 Strategic Defence Package saw orders for fighter jets, helicopters, warships and submarines placed with British, German, Italian, Spanish and French arms companies at a total cost of $4.8 billion (£3.5 billion). It was an eyewatering sum for a country with no immediate external security threat, and allegations emerged that the price had been inflated by systematic bribery. Few have been convicted.
In 2003 Tony Yengeni, the ANC’s former chief whip, was sentenced to four years for accepting a discount on a Mercedes car from the South African branch of Daimler Benz at the time it was competing to supply jets and helicopters. Its bid was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2005 Schabir Shaik, at the time Mr Zuma’s financial adviser, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for accepting a bribe from Thomson-CSF, now Thales.
Then-president Thabo Mbeki sacked Mr Zuma as deputy state president after Shaik’s conviction, but charges against Mr Zuma himself were dropped several times until they were finally reinstated in 2018. “South Africa didn’t need that arms deal. We only needed more equipment for a larger army, and that stuff could be made in South Africa,” said Bantu Holomisa, MP, the leader of the United Democratic Movement party.
“Apart from all the bribes, we wasted money, that was the serious start of corruption in South Africa,” he added.