Cyril Ramaphosa will not fight challenge to arms probe

President Cyril Ramaphosa will not fight a major legal challenge to the R140m arms deal inquiry, which found there was no evidence of corruption in the multibillion-rand agreement.

Ramaphosa’s decision not to oppose the review application lodged by Corruption Watch and Right2Know could have significant consequences for former president Jacob Zuma, who has used the report compiled by judge Willie Seriti as part of his pending court bid to permanently stay his corruption prosecution.

None of the government departments cited as respondents in the case nor Seriti is fighting Corruption Watch and Right2Know’s application for the inquiry’s 2016 findings to be set aside.

Zuma has argued that the findings of Seriti’s four-year-long investigation confirm that there was no corruption in the arms deal. The former president has used those findings to raise questions about the validity of the arms deal corruption charges he now faces.

Zuma’s lawyers declined to comment on the current government’s apparent reluctance to defend those findings.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, confirmed on Sunday that the presidency had filed “a notice to abide by the decision of the court” in response to the review application.

“We believe that the issues being raised are primarily procedural in nature, and therefore the commission would be best placed to answer to those issues. We will file an explanatory affidavit to assist the court in coming to a decision.”

Seriti declined to comment and Diko would not be drawn on why the judge had not opposed the application. She further stressed that the explanatory affidavit filed by the presidency would also provide legal argument about the importance of “safeguarding the sanctity of processes that seek to uncover information in the public interest, regardless of the outcome of those processes”.

While the presidency has sought to attribute its decision to not defend Seriti’s findings as a purely legal-technical one, that decision is likely to carry political consequences. Seriti’s report exonerated top politicians, including former president Thabo Mbeki, of corruption linked to the arms deal.

Corruption Watch and Right2Know argue that the commission misled the public and failed to uphold its mandate to investigate the claims of malfeasance it was aware of.

If the groups succeed in persuading the high court in Pretoria that Seriti failed to consider any evidence that was critical or raised real questions about the legality of the arms deal, the court will in effect be asked to declare the Seriti commission a whitewash.

Right2Know’s Ghalib Galant told Business Day the group is looking forward to the case being set down for hearing as “this matter concerns a number of salient legal points that require addressing”.

“Should we succeed in this application, it will be like the inquiry never happened. Given the way in which we believe this commission proceeded, and the apparent failure by the chair to consider all the evidence that was at his disposal, we do believe we have made out a strong case.”