The Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture has questioned former president Jacob Zuma’s assertion that he could not appear before it because of a “serious medical condition”.
On Tuesday the inquiry’s legal team was set to argue an application for Zondo to issue a summons compelling Zuma to appear before him to testify. As part of that application the acting secretary of the commission, Kwezi Brigitte Shabalala, deposed an affidavit detailing why the inquiry’s legal team believed Zuma must be legally forced to appear before the deputy chief justice.
Shabalala said the commission’s legal team had issued Zuma with 23 notices saying he was implicated in witness evidence since the start of the commission in August 2018.
“In respect of some 23 notices so issued, Mr Zuma has declined to make any application to put his own version in response to the allegations made against him and concerning him and to cross-examine the relevant witnesses,” she said.
Shabalala said in a 12-page document that Zuma, whose response to the evidence led against him at the inquiry is “central” to the inquiry’s mandate and investigations, had “failed or refused”:
• to abide by the directives issued by the commission’s chairperson.
• to deliver an affidavit detailing his response to “areas of interest” that the inquiry asked him for answers about in July 2019.
• to appear at hearings scheduled for his further testimony which resulted in a loss of three weeks’ hearing time, a loss that the commission can ill afford both in relation to the time and costs involved.
• to approach the inquiry for rulings “excusing non-compliance with the directives”.
She further contended that Zuma had failed to provide an affidavit detailing his response to the testimony of former government communications boss Themba Maseko and ex-ANC MP Vytjie Mentor, after being asked to do so by Zondo in September 2018.
Maseko claimed Zuma asked him to assist his friends, the Gupta family, prior to him meeting with Ajay Gupta about government advertising in Gupta media outlets. Mentor claimed Zuma met her at the Gupta compound in Saxonwold. Zuma denies this.
Shabalala also contended that the former president failed to respond to an application to cross-examine him by journalist Redi Tlhabi, who he accused of trying to assassinate his character through her involvement in a movie allegedly titled Raped by Power.
Tlhabi has denied these claims. While Zuma has filed a notice to oppose Tlhabi’s application to cross-examine him, he has yet to file documents explaining that opposition.
Shabalala insists that, in light of this, “a summons is necessary to secure the appearance of Mr Zuma”.
Zuma’s appearance was necessary, she says, to enable the commission to offer Zuma “a final opportunity to exercise his right to be heard and to hear Mr Zuma’s version in regard to matters raised in evidence concerning him and which implicate him”.
It was also crucial that the commission be given the opportunity to question Zuma, she says, so that it could ascertain the truthfulness of his and other witnesses’ evidence.
Zuma insists that he has co-operated fully with the inquiry but was unable to attend a scheduled date for his testimony in October because he was in court fighting for a permanent stay of his corruption prosecution.
He says he was unable to attend hearing dates in November 2019 and January this year because he was either hospitalised or due to receive medical treatment overseas.
He has offered to arrange for Zondo to meet with the military doctor who leads his medical team, so he can be appraised, confidentially, of the nature of Zuma’s medical condition. During the inquiry’s hearings earlier this week, Zondo agreed to do so “reluctantly”. It is unclear when this meeting will take place.
Zuma, meanwhile, has accused the inquiry’s legal team of providing ammunition to his political opponents by suggesting — through the summons application — that he was unwilling to testify and had something to hide. Nothing could be further from the truth, Zuma says.
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