Former chief justice Raymond Zondo has delivered a scathing rebuke to President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying it had pained him to swear in cabinet ministers who had serious state capture findings against them.
It was like the president was saying, ‘I don’t care what you have found about these people. I think they are good enough to be promoted’
— Raymond Zondo, former chief justice
“It was like the president was saying, ‘I don’t care what you have found about these people. I think they are good enough to be promoted,’” Zondo told the Sunday Times this week.
“The recommendations that were made were based on evidence that was led transparently, when the whole nation was watching… We are defending the report because we believe it is sound.
“But yes, I had to swear them in, remembering what I found against them,” Zondo said in an unprecedented attack by such a senior judicial officer on a sitting president.
His comments, on the sidelines of a South Africa Council of Churches (SACC) anticorruption summit, are especially damning because the inquiry into state capture that he led was considered to be the centrepiece of Ramaphosa’s “new dawn” cleaning of the government stables following the Jacob Zuma years.
Zondo also expressed doubts over the upcoming national dialogue, saying he was concerned about basic failings in the country that should be fixed without having to convene such a forum.
“I don’t want to say it's a bad thing ... [but] I’m concerned about simple things that don’t need a national dialogue. I’m concerned about making sure that in municipalities we have competent people who are doing their job, people who have integrity.
“I’m concerned about the interference, even in municipalities. I’m concerned about hospitals. People going to hospitals and not finding doctors, and nurses and not finding medicines. Those basic things.”
Little has come of Zondo’s four-year inquiry, and some ANC heavyweights who were named, such as party chair Gwede Mantashe, have gone to court to contest it.
Referring to the latest inquiry ordered by Ramaphosa, in which acting deputy chief justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga will probe the allegations of KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, Zondo said the way the government had responded to the state capture commission did not bode well.
“My feelings are that people in South Africa have seen how slow the progress is with the implementation of the recommendations of the commission, even regarding those recommendations that are being implemented. There are many which are not [being implemented],” Zondo said.
“[Will] the same not happen to the [Madlanga] commission ... because this commission is also important.”
Zondo told the SACC event on Wednesday that Ramaphosa had been “inconsistent” in disciplining cabinet ministers implicated in wrongdoing.
He cited the recent scandals involving the minister of human settlements, Thembi Simelane, embattled police minister Senzo Mchunu — who has been placed on special leave — and the now axed higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane.
“So the question arises, what is the rule? As a minister, when do you get shifted to another department and continue to be a minister and enjoy your position and benefits even though there are allegations against you? When do you get out on special leave, when do you get removed?
“The president is the No 1 citizen in the country. It is very important that the message he sends, through what he does and through what he says, must be consistent,” Zondo said.
“It is similar to what happened two years ago. I found myself having to swear in ministers against whom I had made adverse findings in the commission. One was a deputy minister who was now promoted to a full minister, and I had to swear them in, knowing the findings I had made.
“Another one was the deputy minister who was a chairperson of the portfolio committee who had previously been minister of transport, and I had made findings against them, and the president was promoting them despite the findings of the commission. What does that do to our fight against corruption?”
A public exchange via the media with a former head of our apex court would be very unpalatable. The president will respond directly to the former chief justice should [he] seek an opportunity to raise his issues through a direct and constructive engagement
— Vincent Magwenya, Presidency spokesperson
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the president would not be drawn into a public spat with Zondo.
“The former chief justice has had access to the president whenever there were matters of concern to be discussed. Recently the president, together with the minister of justice & constitutional development, along with other members of the national executive, held a very successful meeting with the current leadership of the judiciary on all matters affecting the judiciary,” Magwenya said.
“We issued a joint statement on the meeting and the matters that are being advanced in the institutional interest of the judiciary. Therefore a public exchange via the media with a former head of our apex court would be very unpalatable.
“The president will respond directly to the former chief justice should [he] seek an opportunity to raise his issues through a direct and constructive engagement,” he said.
Zondo said those who worked with him in the state capture commission were disappointed that their efforts were for nothing.
“People have expressed frustration, because they know how hard my team in the commission, team of investigators, team of lawyers, who are evidence leaders and the secretary, how dedicated we all were in doing the work.
“We even had, at some stage, for some months, two sessions where, during the day, I’ll be sitting listening to evidence, and then we would sit in the evenings as well, up to 9pm or 10pm, people remember all that, and they look at what is happening, and they say, ‘really, is this acceptable?’”
“We are not saying that the recommendations of a commission, the president must implement all of them, but at least we should know which ones are being implemented and those that are not being implemented, what the problem is.”
At least 12 people implicated in the state capture commission have taken the report under review, including Mantashe, ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane and former Eskom boss Matshela Koko. About 100 ANC members appeared before the party’s integrity committee but nothing has come out of this process.
Zondo said he had considered every challenge against the commission’s report and the document could be defended in court. He said he hoped that Madlanga would not encounter the same issues he had experienced in getting the government to defend the report when it is challenged.
He pleaded for long-overdue payments due to commission lawyers to be speeded up.
“We started in the second half of 2022 with reviews coming in and getting lawyers. But for over 2½ years, some of my lawyers were not paid, yet they were doing work to help the commission. It’s only with the latest [justice] minister [Mmamoloko Kubayi] where some payment has been made, but even that is inadequate.
“A lot of those lawyers have been doing work without being paid. At any time they can say, ‘We are no longer continuing to represent you because we are not being paid.’
“And what will that mean? Either I must go to court myself and argue my own case, or I must then not oppose. In which case, those people who are implicated in the report will have it easy in court, because their review applications will not be opposed,” Zondo said.
“I hope that what has happened to me, that my lawyers have had to wait for so long, and when they are paid it’s not even enough and some have not been paid at all, I hope that does not happen to justice Madlanga’s commission. That is very unacceptable.
“I have spoken over the years up to the highest office. I would get promises, I would get told that this will be sorted out but there have been different ministers… but the officials just seem not to want to pay.”
The justice ministry, which is handling the matter, had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Elaborating on his reservations about the national dialogue, Zondo said: “My concern is that we had a lot of negotiations before 1994. We came out with the interim constitution, and the final constitution indicated what kind of South Africa we wanted. And about maybe 10 years ago, there was a national development plan… I don’t know what has happened to that plan. It talks about ‘vision 2030’, and in five years, when you read it, a lot of things that it talked to haven’t happened.”
Mcebisi Ndletyana, head of political economy at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflections, said Zondo was raising legitimate issues and was right to hold the government accountable.
“Zondo didn’t investigate things that he came up with by himself. These were things that were pursued following revelations of corruption. Corruption is a public concern, so if you have a commission looking into corruption, one decent thing you must do is to follow up on the findings.
“So we need to applaud the chief justice and join in the call for government to implement those findings, and most importantly, we need to call on parliament to do a review.”
He said Zondo’s remarks showed dereliction of duty on the part of parliament, which had failed to hold the government accountable and provide oversight over the implementation of the commission report.
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