It was the indication of declining electoral support rather than the glaring examples of malfeasance that finally forced the ANC to reflect on its involvement in state capture and corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the Zondo commission on Thursday.
Ramaphosa conceded that the ANC had “drawn numerous lines in the sand” in the past and passed resolutions to put a stop to corruption, but to no effect. A number of important bodies both inside and outside the ANC — the ANC veterans, the SA Council of Churches and the public protector — had appealed to the ANC to take action against state capture to no avail.
Asked by evidence leader Paul Pretorius whether it was fear of losing support rather than responding to the glaring signals of state capture that finally propelled it to act, Ramaphosa said he agreed.
“It is true that it was the reaction of ordinary South Africans demonstrated through [declining] electoral support that got the ANC to sit down and reflect on what state capture was doing to its fortunes. This became apparent leading to elections in election surveys, but also wherever we went, the number one concern of people was corruption and state capture,” he said.
The release of the Gupta e-mails — a huge leaked trove of e-mails from a Gupta company server in June 2017 — compounded the problem and affected the integrity of the ANC.
“It had a huge impact in getting the ANC to get a sense that it needed to do something or it would see a continued slide in its electoral fortunes,” he said.
Ramaphosa faced a second day of questioning on Thursday during which the commission probed why the ANC had failed to implement successive resolutions to fight corruption and why it had failed so profoundly to exercise parliamentary oversight.
From 2014 to 2018, Ramaphosa was head of the political committee, a subcommittee of the ANC’s national executive, which directs the ANC caucus in parliament. The commission was implicitly critical of Ramaphosa for enabling the caucus to fail in its constitutional duty to ensure that all organs of state are accountable to it and that it maintains oversight of all executive authority.
Ramaphosa argued that the fault in oversight lay rather with the ANC’s slow reaction rather than a complete subversion of its constitutional role. The ANC had decided in 2012 to be more “activist” at parliament to address problems of corruption and state capture.
Evidence leader Alec Freund contested this, putting it to Ramaphosa that rather than a delay, “there was a very determined resistance that parliament should exercise its duty.
“There was a complete unwillingness of parliament
to investigate.”
The ANC had, for instance, turned down two appeals from the DA to investigate state capture, but the ANC had countered these by passing a resolution that MPs with evidence of wrongdoing should report it to the authorities or the public protector.
“The true fact was that the ANC was determined not to probe,” said Freund.
Ramaphosa replied: “I wouldn’t say so. Initially, the thinking
was that the investigation be done by law enforcement and Chapter 9 institutions ... and in the end the parliamentary process was activated. Where there was a fault was that there was a delay.”
Cathartic
The ANC agreed in May 2017 to conduct a parliamentary investigation into corruption at state-owned enterprises.
Ramaphosa emphasised throughout his testimony that his party was committed to the Zondo commission, which it saw as a cathartic moment for the ANC.
“We have been part of a process of introspection and we decided to support this commission even though there was a fear that it could tear the ANC apart. We were brave enough to say this is a process we must go through,” he said.
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