President Cyril Ramaphosa is not opposing an application to amend the state capture report, but is reserving his right to seek more time to report back to parliament in light of the amendments.
This follows an application to court by the chair of the state capture commission (SCC), chief justice Raymond Zondo, to amend the report, saying the amendments would not prejudice anyone.
“But the amendment appears to be one of substance,” said the presidency’s director-general, Phindile Baleni. She added it might affect the presidency’s ability to report to parliament by its October 22 deadline.
The president must, in terms of the court’s order, formally submit the state capture commission’s report to parliament and indicate his intentions on its implementation by October 22. Baleni said the president had gathered a team working with other departments and relevant agencies “to determine how most effectively to implement the SCC report and its recommendations”.
In Zondo’s application, made in August, some of the corrections he sought were grammatical errors and wrong figures (as a result of incorrectly merged documents). But he also said he wanted to include a document that evaluates the evidence of two witnesses, which “through oversight” was not included. The two witnesses were not named.
He said nobody would be prejudiced by the document’s inclusion, but “in any event, whoever is aggrieved by findings in that document will be free to institute such legal proceedings as they may choose to institute”.
Baleni said on September 13 the commission provided the presidency with the 40 pages that apparently made up the document. “But the presidency’s team has not yet been able to apply its mind properly to the amendment. There is a possibility that it will impact on the work of the team, such that it will not be able to report to parliament by October 22,” she said.
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