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Justice Raymond Zondo, who chairs the commission and is the vice president of the country’s Supreme Court, is now one of the most recognized members of the South African judiciary. ‘Zondo’ has become synonymous with applause and the live broadcast of its audiences has turned it into a kind of national soap opera of the kleptocracy that South Africa has become.
First published by the weekly Daily Maverick 168
In the age of social media, the Zondo Commission of Inquiry features repeated and regular trends on Twitter, Google, and Facebook. In 2020, even as Covid-19 forced its audiences into the virtual world rather than the real world, the commission attracted national attention from January through December.
Justice Raymond Zondo, who chairs the commission and is the vice president of the country’s Supreme Court, is now one of the most recognized members of South Africa’s judiciary. “Zondo” has become synonymous with applause and the live broadcast of its audiences has turned it into a kind of national soap opera of the kleptocracy that South Africa has become.
In 2019, when former President Jacob Zuma played manga-manga with the commission, Zondo won criticism for quitting. It took 16 months until November 2020 for Zuma to return to commission this year and when he made a runner with his defender Muzi Sikhakhane after filing a request for Zondo to recuse himself, the gloves were removed.
Zondo stopped leaning back to accommodate Zuma. He filed criminal charges against Zuma, and his attorney will appear in Constitutional Court on December 29 to request an order compelling the former head of state to appear before the commission in January and February 2021 to give substantive testimony.
Part of the request to the court is to order that Zuma’s right to revoke the silence be removed as a defense. It will be the first clash of the titans of the new year, since Zuma’s lawyers advised on December 14 that he will not respond to the documents of the Zondo Constitutional Court or participate in the case.
In 2020, Zondo’s face changed. When the hearings began in August 2018, his judicial inscrutability was impenetrable, regardless of the testimony he heard. This year, the judge abandoned his legendary neutrality for the right to be stunned and frankly upset by the revelations of layers and layers of corruption and the enabling of corruption that he has heard.
Zondo tried and couldn’t suppress a laugh on more than one occasion while testifying. When former SAA board chairman Dudu Myeni appeared in a strange digitally pixelated form via Zoom to repeatedly declare for an entire day that he would say nothing for fear of incriminating himself, you could almost imagine smoke coming out of your ears by Zondo.
When Eskom’s former company secretary Suzanne Daniels appeared in September 2020 and said she didn’t know what made her go meet Gupta family strategist Salim Essa, when he called her, she cleared her throat: “Really, Mrs. Daniels! ” with some disbelief.
It’s been a great year on the Zondo Commission of Inquiry. The first big political names appeared before the commission in 2020. For receiving payments and other gratuities from Bosasa, Zondo heard testimony from former Gauteng Prime Minister Nomvula Mokonyane, former ANC MPs Vincent Smith and Cedric Frolick.
Then the big shots. Testimony about how money had flowed from the Free State government housing department to Edwin Sodi’s Blackhead Consulting for the asbestos roof home audit also led to the first state capture arrests by the Hawks and the Tax Authority. National. ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule was indicted in November for this case when the power of amendments to the commission’s terms of reference was revealed: the firewall between the commission and law enforcement agencies was broken, which enabled interoperability.
And in November, the judge was again visibly surprised when forensic investigator and author Paul Holden of Shadow World Investigations revealed how bribes of R9 billion and R56 million had been identified.
Holden triangulated evidence from HSBC bank statements and other documents to arrive at the most accurate figures of how Transnet funds to buy trains had been laundered and funneled out of the country.
In the last week of testimonials in December, three executives from global consulting firm McKinsey gave testimony to Zondo and also agreed to return R650 million (and perhaps more to come) to Transnet. This was after commission investigators showed them evidence of how former McKinsey chief operating officer in South Africa, Vikas Sagar, likely knew his contracts were the fruit of a poisoned tree. McKinsey’s reimbursement and testimony made world news to the Zondo Commission of Inquiry and was an outcome that revealed that the judge has a sense of the dramatic.
Other testimonies drew public attention for how they revealed that State Capture agents were fools. Chartered accountant Yakhe Kwinana took the judge on long and winding journeys during her time on the SAA board, which included a lengthy explanation on how to do vetkoek.
Zondo tried and couldn’t suppress a laugh on more than one occasion while testifying. When former SAA board chairman Dudu Myeni appeared in a strange digitally pixelated form via Zoom to repeatedly declare for an entire day that he would say nothing for fear of incriminating himself, you could almost imagine smoke coming out of your ears. by Zondo.
The year 2021 is going to be difficult for Zondo. In the first two months, he will have to deal with Zuma, who is at the center of the commission’s terms of reference. In October 2020, a civil society task force submitted a list of 100 key witnesses whose testimony had yet to be heard. Three of them testified before the commission closed the deal for the year, but they still leave a substantial list to hear. Zondo is supposed to submit his report to President Cyril Ramaphosa before March 31, 2021, but he is unlikely to meet the deadline because Covid-19 got in the way and delayed procedures during the full shutdown.
Hennie van Vuuren of Open Secrets and the Civil Society Task Force says Bain & Company, audit firms, and banks still need to give testimony.
“The narrative is being reformulated by companies like KPMG and it is crucial that they are held to account,” he says. KPMG has repaired various civil society organizations and hired bigwigs like Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu to clean up his act and also his reputation for his involvement in the capture of the SA Revenue Service. Van Vuuren says that it is also important to listen to the victims of State Capture, such as students, travelers and farmers who stole funds extracted by corruption networks. “It would establish a connection between the commission and the people.”
Zondo smiles quickly and is impeccably courteous to whoever sits across from him, but in 2020, the head wearing the crown grew heavier.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng will be retiring soon as his term is about to end, and politicians are suddenly of the opinion that it is time for a woman to serve as chief justice.
Is this genuine gender awareness, or have Zondo and his commission upset too many bad apple carts to land the top spot? It is one of the questions that will likely be answered in 2022. DM168
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available for free to savvy Pick n Pay shoppers at these Pick n Pay stories.
