PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa is slated to testify at the State Capture Commission on Thursday, in which he’s expected to face tough questions relating to allegations of ‘state capture’, which happened under his watch as leader of government business and chairperson of the ANC’s Deployment Committee.
Many witnesses and political parties claim that the ANC’s cadre deployment was the most important contributing factor to corruption and state capture, adding that cadre deployment policy not only covered deployments in key positions but also the redeployment of party loyalists.
Ramaphosa is also expected to face tough questions about the collapse of state institutions under his watch, including key state-owned entities (SOEs) such as Eskom, Transnet and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).
He is also expected to answer to allegations made by former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe that he channelled Eskom deals to a company linked to him.
Last month, Molefe repeated his allegations about the capture of Eskom by Glencore and Ramaphosa, then the chairperson of the mining giant’s Optimum coal mine.
Molefe’s testimony at the commission revolved around a contractual dispute between the power utility and the coal supplier.
Molefe said he’d refused to agree to the price increase Glencore wanted, which he described as extortion.
When Ramaphosa came to power in 2018, Eskom cancelled a coal contract of R3.7 billion with Tegeta, the erstwhile Gupta company, as well as a R14 billion oil supply agreement.
Eskom and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) also launched proceedings to recover R3.8 billion from 12 individuals, including the Guptas, a former minister, former senior executives and former board members.
Eskom also retrieved R1 billion from McKinsey and R150 million from Deloitte – two Deloitte directors also resigned.
Ramaphosa also fired the erstwhile South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner Tom Moyane in November 2018.
Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said in recent months that the commission cannot finish its work until Ramaphosa and the ANC testified at the inquiry.
On Sunday, the Sunday Independent reported that Ramaphosa allegedly “manipulated” Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo regarding the handling of a court case involving former State Security Agency (SSA) director-general Arthur Fraser, to save the career of the inspector-general of intelligence, Dr Setlhomamaru Dintwe, in 2018.
According to an affidavit deposed at the Zondo Commission by Fraser two weeks ago and seen by the paper, Ramaphosa was allegedly “engaged in an irregular process that manipulated the legal process of the Republic of South Africa” during a series of telephone calls between himself and Judge Mlambo, as well as between himself and former state security minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba.
At the centre of the calls was Dintwe’s court case challenging Fraser’s decision to withdraw his security clearance in March 2018 for allegedly lying under oath about the cause of a car accident while driving a state vehicle, collaborating and sharing classified information with the opposition party as well as leaking sensitive information to controversial journalist, Jacques Pauw, in breach of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act of 1994.
Fraser said in the affidavit that he had taken the decision after giving Ramaphosa and Letsatsi-Duba evidence of Dintwe having lied under oath about the cause of the accident, as well as his leaking of information to Pauw, including the report of the Road Traffic Management Corporation and audio recordings of telephone calls between the inspector general of intelligence and the investigative journalist.
He added the president and the minister had concurred with his decision after seeing the evidence and listening to the audio recordings independently.
- Inside Politics
