🔒 Zondo to ask Zuma and Ramaphosa: What did you do to stop corruption at SOEs?

___STEADY_PAYWALL___
The Zondo Commission has resumed hearings after the Covid-19 pandemic halted public hearings amid pressure from civic organisations to stop meandering and to get on with the job of getting to the bottom of state capture in South Africa. The commission had its first public hearings in August 2018, and despite hundreds of millions of rands spent and a mountain of submissions on state capture – no arrests have been made. The Civil Society Group on State Capture, which includes 27 civil society organisations including the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Corruption Watch, the Helen Suzman Foundation and Open Secrets, have asked Judge Raymond Zondo to release an interim report and also express concern that the pandemic and the lockdown could increase opportunities for powerful networks to abuse the state’s resources. Spokesperson Zen Mathe told Biznews they have also urged the Zondo Commission to stop treating high stakes witnesses, like former President Jacob Zuma, with kid’s gloves. 

We are glad to have heard in the commission’s response from the Civil Society working group and general public pressure to have heard that prior to this, that the commission was in fact engaged in ongoing work during the lockdown, and we hope in these hearings that it’s going to be resuming to see a real push by the commission and their commitment to ensure that those in the public and private sector are held accountable.

And that one of the criticisms that we have also made of the commission was that it should not treat various high stake witnesses with kid gloves and not to tread lightly and to use all the powers at the disposal of the commission to push witnesses to give facts to the commission. So we are happy to see that the work of the commission is starting, and one of the things we have said to the commissioner and have raised publicly is that we hope to see a bigger push and no more meandering by the commission, allowing witnesses almost in their own way to direct how the hearings will go, but ultimately for the commission to take a stand and to push for the fact finding mission that it is mandated to do. 

The high profile people you’re talking about – are you referring to former President Zuma? 

Well, he is one of the main witnesses that did come forward that was high profile. And some of what we saw there was one of Jacob Zuma’s very typical, tactical and strategic engagements with accountability mechanisms and institutions to, though they seem to be complying with requests to appear, stalling mechanisms, that he adopts the Stalingrad approach that he’s adopted with the arms deal, court cases where in the commission we saw him stalling and finding ways to dodge questions and to avoid questions and to skirt around some of the main and important issues.

And in some ways, the commission allowing him a little bit of room to manoeuvre in some ways and to do that, and ultimately, as the commission recommences its hearings tomorrow, we pushed at the commission so it doesn’t allow witnesses to skirt around the facts and to dodge those hard questions and for the commission to push for those answers to be; A – asked and B – answered by the witnesses. 

If we go forward to the Covid-19 period, there seems to be a lot of potential for corruption in procurement with personal protection equipment?

The constraints during this pandemic and the lockdown has seen increased opportunities for powerful networks to abuse state resources, as is often the case in times of panic and disaster and pandemics. As the working group we feel is particularly important in times such as these, when the emergency procurement processes may present potential avenues for corruption and patronage and ongoing state capture.

And that is why public accountability mechanisms to hold powerful public and private actors who act with impunity to be held to account – more so now in this time, when there is very real work of state capture and corrupt networks to ultimately act against the interests of the public, to see accountability mechanisms going forward and cases being prosecuted by the National Prosecuting Authorities and various other state institutions tasked with taking some of the evidence coming forth from the Zondo Commission forward to see all of those accountability mechanisms, in effect, working the due diligence being done will hopefully add to the visibility of efforts being made by the public and other institutions to say that you will be held to account for your actions and corrupt networking actors to be aware that they will be held accountable – it’s important.

Since we did raise that in our letter to the commission, the commission was very clear to say that that doesn’t fall within their mandate and that their mandate is not necessarily to investigate any corruption or state capture – quote unquote – and rather to refocus (even now, with its term coming to an end very soon) to refocus and to fulfil its mandate, which is following the Public Protector’s state of capture report.

So directly, the Zondo Commission won’t necessarily be tasked with investigating these particular emergency procurement processes that arise in the current Covid pandemic. State institutions are failing in their mandates in some ways, which historically – we’re dealing with ghosts of state institutions which have been tasked to deal with cases such as these, monitoring and accountability, having been either hollowed out or captured.

And what you have now is – you barely have the time to rebuild those institutions, whatever that kind of rebuilding may mean or look like (again, which is also up for debate). You have those very same institutions tasked – all of a sudden and very quickly on the back of a very recent corrupt past – with the task of managing accountability processes of some big money flows, and that is, I think, where a lot of public concern is coming. We’re off the back of state capture and corruption, and some would argue we aren’t really in a post state capture phase even now, as we speak. And I think that’s where public concern and mistrust comes with all these big projects being involved in a pandemic where not everyone is necessarily looking. 

Your message is – we’re not preoccupied with Covid-19, we’re still on the watch? 

Yes, it’s to say we’re engaged and we’re aware of a pandemic and we’re pushing it on all fronts as civil society should be. But push on all fronts means that we are not taking our eye off the ball and we are watching. 

To speed up the investigations of the Zondo Commission, it was decided that the commission’s terms of reference were too broad and with only 10 months left before its mandate expires – it will zoom in on the state-owned enterprises. A commission spokesperson told Biznews that the issues raised by the former Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, will now be addressed with urgency. 

The commission was hard at work behind the scenes. We did not have public hearings, yes, but there was a lot of work that was done behind the scenes, by the legal team and the investigation team of the commission. So even though there were no public hearings, there was a lot of work done behind the scenes by the commission.

And he has also indicated that things are gonna be streamlined, because you’ve got a deadline of March 2021. Are you going to make that deadline? 

Yes, we are working flat out to make sure that we stick to the deadline that had been granted to the commission by the high court. And we are going to be focusing on what we call the Thuli Madonsela public protector issues. And also, the issues that we have stated won’t be complicated to make sure that we stick to the timeframes that the commission has been granted. 

What many people are asking – high profile people like former President Zuma (uses delaying tactics) – they want to know when would the commission actually stamp down on people like these and force them to actually come to the commission and answer the questions put to them? 

The commission is engaging with those high profile people, and when the time is right – members of the media and the public will be told when those people are appearing before the commission. 

So do you have a date possibly for when President Zuma is going to appear? 

Not at all at the moment. When that time comes, we’ll make sure that we make an announcement to the media and the public to give them those dates as they are confirmed. 

So what are you doing to streamline things that you ensure that you reach this deadline of March 2021? 

The streamlining goes with what we call focusing on the public protector issues and ensuring that evidence is led in a way that we only focus on issues that are needed to be broadcasted live, but also making sure that we don’t go through the affidavit system that we used to go through every time – but that the legal team must deal with those issues behind the scenes and then come only to the hearing when it is necessary. 

What is being investigated in the first week that the Zondo Commission resumes? 

We are dealing with Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa related testimony, which is PRASA. 

And after that, would the other state-owned enterprises be dealt with? 

When we have confirmed the timetable moving forward – we’ll announce as well. 

This is Linda van Tilburg for Biznews.