The commission investigates accusations about the ‘Capture of the State’ during the mandate of Jacob Zuma
June 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, denies having interfered in any way with the work of the judicial apparatus due to the delays in the presentation of the final report on an investigation into alleged corruption in the African country.
“The presidency rejects claims that the president has interfered in any way with the work of the judicial commission, as some opposition parties have speculated,” Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement posted on its website.
The commission, headed by Judge Raymond Zondo, is investigating allegations of corruption during the term of former President Jacob Zuma and, although it has submitted several partial reports, the publication of the final report has been postponed since June 15.
The South African Presidency has stressed that “it has not yet received any type of copy of the commission’s final report” and has added that Zondo himself reported to Ramaphosa on June 16 that there was “a delay” and that he was working to “finish the report as soon as possible”.
“The commission later indicated that the electronic report would be delivered to the president during the afternoon of June 19, 2022, which, unfortunately, did not happen,” he explained, while confirming a phone call on Monday between Ramaphosa and Zondo to address the situation.
On the other hand, he has highlighted that the “provisional” date of June 22 has been agreed for the delivery of the report and has emphasized that “the Presidency will make an announcement once it has received the final report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Accusations of Capture of the State”.
The investigations for the ‘Capture of the State’ were launched after the accusations of corruption that were collected in a report by the former South African Public Defender – a figure equivalent to the Ombudsman – Thuli Madonsela, in which her connections were detailed with the Gupta family, with ties to Zuma.
Zuma was sentenced in June 2021 to 15 months in prison for contempt for refusing to testify before a judicial panel investigating corruption during his tenure, while also facing trial for alleged corruption for nearly 800 payments he allegedly received in connection with a purchase of weapons from the French company Thales to modernize the country’s defense apparatus in the late 1990s.
The former president is the first democratically elected president in South Africa to be sentenced to prison since the African National Congress (ANC) – a party he led between 2007 and 2017, when he was removed in an internal council by his vice president and current president, Ramaphosa – – seized power in 1994.
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