Once called the “father of the nation”, former president Jacob Zuma has been uncovered as the daddy of state capture in the latest report by chief justice Raymond Zondo’s commission.
While the former ANC president was fingered as a “critical player” in the Gupta family’s capture of Eskom, which led to the destruction of what was once among the top 10 power utilities in the world, he has also been identified as “central” to capturing other branches of state, including the National Treasury.
“Central to the Guptas' scheme of state capture was President Zuma, who the Guptas must have identified at a very early stage as somebody whose character was such that they could use him against the people of SA, his own country and his own government to advance their own business interests, and President Zuma readily opened the door for the Guptas to go into the SOEs and help themselves to the money and assets of the people of SA,” the report says.
Zondo’s latest report, the fourth and penultimate instalment after four years spent probing allegations of corruption and fraud in the public sector, was submitted to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office this week and published by the presidency on Friday.
Though this isn’t the first time Zondo has mentioned Zuma and his alleged involvement in facilitating state capture by his friends the Guptas, he sought to answer a question Zuma has long asked whenever offered a public platform: “Wenzeni uZuma? [What has Zuma done?]”
This popular retort is a rallying cry of Zuma's ANC faction, and his supporters sing it often at rallies and gatherings.
In the latest report, which details findings involving Eskom, the Treasury, tech solutions giant EOH, The City of Johannesburg and two projects run by the Free State department of human settlements, Zondo pens a sketch of Zuma’s actions in aid of his friends.
These include:
- Zuma’s cabinet reshuffles to remove key ministers who refused to take often illegal instructions that would benefit the Gupta family;
- Zuma’s role in handing over the coffers of power utility Eskom through the appointment of Lynne Brown as minister of public enterprises and the suspension of four executives;
- the protection of key Gupta allies in the state;
- Zuma’s instructions that senior government officials who refused to participate in state capture, like Themba Maseko and some Eskom executives, be removed;
- the unexplained removal of former finance ministers Nhlanhla Nene and Pravin Gordhan, plus failed attempts to capture the Treasury, including moving key functions to the presidency; and
- the removal of Ngoako Ramatlhodi as the minister of energy, to be replaced with Mosebenzi Zwane.
Zondo draws on testimony and affidavits from the likes of Maseko, Jonas, Ramatlhodi, Nene and former Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile, who all testified to Zuma’s direct involvement in either their removal — as they were seen as stumbling blocks to the Guptas’ intention to loot the state — or the appointment of pliable individuals who would do the notorious family’s bidding.
Zondo cited evidence by Fuzile that Zuma was behind an attempt to move the Treasury’s budgeting unit to the presidency, and that on the night Nene was fired he submitted a list of proposed SAA board members which did not include Zuma’s ally Dudu Myeni.
The whole thing was like a circus. Grown men and women behaving in a bizarre way to please the Guptas!
— Chief justice Raymond Zondo
At Eskom, Zuma was present at a meeting hosted by Myeni where then Eskom chair Zola Tsotsi was told he had to suspend four executives who were not playing ball. This action, endorsed by new public enterprises minster and Gupta ally Brown, opened the door for the appointment of executives who would carve Eskom up.
“The evidence proves a scheme by the Guptas to capture Eskom, install the Guptas' selected officials in strategic positions within Eskom as members of the board, the committees of the board and the executives and then divert Eskom's assets to the Guptas' financial advantage,” Zondo said in his report.
Another key development Zondo identifies is the removal of Ramatlhodi as mineral resources minister in 2015, which Zondo found was “on the probabilities, influenced by the Guptas”. His replacement was Zwane, who “had co-operated with the Guptas” as an MEC in the Free State.
“Mr Zwane had no previous experience of being an MP, he had no prior exposure or experience in mining or mineral resources and had never been a minister before,” the report states. “His record as an MEC in the Free State provincial government was dismal and there is no way that President Zuma would have chosen him because he thought he would do a better job as minister of mineral resources.”
Dealing with the attempted capture of the Treasury, Zondo zoomed in on the Gupta family’s offer to Jonas to make him finance minister, the dismissal of Nene and the appointment of Des van Rooyen and his advisers, the harassment of Gordhan by the Hawks and the removal of him and Jonas in 2017.
Besides the actual offer to Jonas, Zondo also highlights his claim that the Guptas told him “the old man will do anything we tell him to do”.
“I have already found elsewhere in this report that Themba Maseko was removed from GCIS on the instructions of Zuma because the Guptas wanted him removed as they told Maseko they would get Zuma to remove him,” Zondo wrote.
“I find that the statement that Jonas said was made by the Gupta brother who met him on October 23 2015 was true. Zuma has not given a rational explanation for dismissing Nene. Nene’s dismissal is another example that shows that Zuma would do anything that the Guptas wanted him to do,” he said.
Key to the Guptas offer to Jonas was a demand that he immediately fire Fuzile, Treasury deputy director-general Ismail Momoniat and several other senior Treasury staffers.
Zondo found that Jonas's statement that the Gupta brother told him that former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe’s career was safe was true, because of “extraordinary things” that Zuma, ministers Malusi Gigaba and Brown, and former Eskom board chair Ben Ngubane did for him.
These included his appointment by Gigaba as Transnet CEO when there was a better-suited candidate; Brown’s secondment and ultimate appointment of him to Eskom; and Ngubane’s ensuring that Molefe be given an extraordinary pension of R30m, which he wasn't entitled to.
And after resigning from Eskom to “clear his name”, Zondo said, Molefe was sworn in to parliament as part of an elaborate plan that would see him appointed finance minister.
After five of the top six ANC members objected, there was an attempt to have Molefe resign from parliament and return to Eskom as CEO — all before he had cleared his name.
“The whole thing was like a circus. Grown men and women behaving in a bizarre way to please the Guptas!” Zondo said.
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