President Cyril Ramaphosa should “come clean and account” by testifying at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture‚ as he was part of government dealing with state-owned enterprises, DA leader Mmusi Maimane says.
Maimane reiterated the party’s call for Ramaphosa to take the stand at the commission currently sitting in Parktown‚ Johannesburg.
Speaking outside the venue‚ Maimane said: “It ought to be accountable: [Ace] Magashule‚ [Cyril] Ramaphosa and the whole leadership that sat and tried to convince the banks not to shut down the accounts of the Guptas.
"When Ramaphosa was the chair of the interministerial committee on state-owned enterprises‚ he would have known the boards [of the companies]. He would have exercised the ANC deployment committee. Now to suddenly wash themselves clean as if this was Jacob Zuma‚ and the ANC has nothing to do with it‚ is misleading the people of SA.
"If we want to eradicate state capture‚ let’s deal with the ANC. Let them come here [and give evidence]. If we need to appear ourselves‚ I will come and give evidence.”
Maimane accused the ANC of being at the heart of state capture and making the act its own policy.
“When you read ANC documents‚ they were intent to capture the state. State capture is an act of corruption. You take the resources of the people of the country to the benefit of a few individuals who are politically connected‚ at the expense of the people of this country. Our call here today is that the ANC must come and appear [before the commission].
“We wrote legally to the ANC and certainly to the commission itself and said that we demand that the ANC must come and appear before the commission. If we are going to ensure that state capture never happens again‚ then we must ensure that the ANC is held to account in this regard. It is not ironic to note the fact that no one has been arrested‚ because it is a factional battle within the ANC. We refuse to say the resources of SA must be captured by a faction of the ANC‚” he said.
Ramaphosa recently told parliament that it would be his “greatest pleasure” to testify before the commission of inquiry into state capture.
Ramaphosa made the undertaking while responding to oral questions in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). Officials from the country’s four commercial banks have testified on how senior ANC officials invited them to the party's headquarters at Luthuli House to discuss the closure of the Gupta bank accounts.
Among the people who attended the meeting were party leaders Gwede Mantashe‚ Enoch Godongwana and Jessie Duarte. There was also another meeting‚ led by then mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane‚ in which bank officials were pressured to retract their decision to close the Gupta accounts.
DA public enterprises minister Natasha Mazzone‚ who accompanied Maimane‚ welcomed the treaty signed by SA with the United Arab Emirates, which deals with mutual legal assistance and extradition treaties.
“This treaty has to be ratified by parliament before it can take full effect. Yesterday the DA wrote to the speaker calling for an urgent sitting of parliament so that we can have this treaty ratified. The Guptas have nowhere left to run or hide.”
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