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President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to be in the hot seat in the state’s capture investigation in March
President Cyril Ramaphosa will testify before the State Capture Commission of Inquiry, likely in March 2021, Judge Raymond Zondo revealed.
In a final briefing of the year, Zondo, who chairs the Commission, also said that he would seek a court extension in excess of the Commission’s terms until the end of June 2021.
The commission is scheduled to end in March 2021, but the harsh lockdown delayed its proceedings, the judge said.
Ramaphosa and the ANC are likely to testify in March next year, while former President Jacob Zuma has been summoned to appear for a week in January and another week in February. On December 29, a hearing will be held at the Constitutional Court to force him to appear before Zondo.
Zondo said Ramaphosa will be asked a broader set of questions than just those related to where his name was heard in the 303 days of testimony, the Commission has already heard.
“Ramaphosa was part of the executive; he was vice president of the country and the ANC (during the time of the state capture). (We want to know) what he knew, what happened and what were the challenges, “said Zondo.
The name of the president has been mentioned about his son, Andile Ramaphosa, who receives a consultancy from the state-owned capture company Bosasa and about the financing of his CR17 campaign to become president of the ANC.
Zuma’s lawyers have written to the Commission saying that he will not cooperate with it and has also indicated, through his defense counsel, that he can take the path of silence if forced to testify. “The Commission needs to ask (Zuma) questions. If we didn’t have any questions to ask him, we could have left him alone, ”Zondo said. “That is quite important because he was the president of the country at that time … if he did in fact play the role that people said (in testimony to the Commission), you can say that he abused his powers. It is vital that he is questioned and that the Commission has the opportunity to do so. He is one of the people specifically mentioned, as well as the Guptas, because of the position he held. ”He said he did not expect the Guptas to return to South Africa to testify, but said the Commission had sufficient testimony and evidence of money flows.
If the extension is granted, the Commission will complete the oral testimony hearing in late March and draft its report for delivery to Ramaphosa in late June.
Zondo said staff were already preparing summaries to ensure that the writing was efficient and fast.
Commission Secretary Professor Itumeleng Mosala said that he had gathered a gigabyte of information on corruption and that this file alone would deter corruption in the future.
The Commission has heard more than 200 witnesses, who have provided more than 159,000 affidavits and documents. These witnesses have testified for 323 days and their investigators have issued 2,736 subpoenas and 2,330 notifications to people to provide information or testify.
Testimony about the capture at SAA, SABC, Transnet, Eskom and Denel was largely complete and testimony about SARS will be heard in January.
Civil society organizations will make recommendations on how to improve whistleblower protection and support, while also generating evidence on how to ensure that the tender system is not so easily exposed to abuse and how to build better parliamentary accountability. Zondo said.DM
