Makhosi Khoza tells Zondo Commission why she became disillusioned with the ANC

• Anyone who tried to protect the rule of law in the ANC would be punished, former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza testified before the Zondo Commission.
• Faith Muthambi told Khoza that former president Jacob Zuma would consider her for finance minister if she accepted only "one boss" – Zuma himself.
• Her life was threatened because of her outspokenness, she claimed. 

Anyone who sought to uphold the rule of law would be punished, and she is living proof of this, former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza told the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture on Thursday.

She set out how she became disillusioned with the leadership of former president Jacob Zuma, and how her party set out to silence her often critical voice.

Khoza, who became involved with the ANC in the early 1980s, aged 12, became a Member of Parliament in 2014.

Initially, she served on the Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF).

She recalled a SCOF meeting, where board chairperson of the SAA, Dudu Myeni, outlined a plan to fire old, white pilots and replace them with young, black pilots.

Khoza said she understands transformation, not only in terms of pigmentation, but also in terms of the integrity of systems, but that it also requires competency.

Khoza questioned Myeni's plan, saying that the SAA is lauded for its safety record, thanks to those pilots.

In a heated debate, her ANC colleagues said she is anti-transformation.

After the meeting, she was invited to lunch by Des van Rooyen, then the ANC whip in SCOF. He would later controversially serve as finance minister for a weekend.

Pinky Kekana, now the deputy minister of communications, also attended the lunch.

At the lunch in the Marks Building on the Parliamentary precinct, Van Rooyen told her she was "counter-revolutionary" and asked why she had questioned "Comrade Dudu". She was told to never question comrades.

In an affidavit to the commission, Van Rooyen denied that this happened.

"I think Des van Rooyen knows very well that this took place," responded Khoza.

Demotion 

She was later removed from SCOF and made chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. She viewed this as a demotion at the time.

Khoza was also selected to serve on the ad hoc committee, which investigated the SABC board. A scholar and scientist herself, Khoza was not impressed by the appointment of the unqualified Hlaudi Motsoeneng as SABC COO, who had a raft of Public Protector findings against him.

Before the ad hoc committee started its work, she was called to a meeting at a Johannesburg hotel by then communications minister Faith Muthambi. Motsoeneng was also present at the meeting.

Muthambi told Khoza she has only "one boss" - then president Jacob Zuma - and he would consider Khoza for finance minister if she would accept that she has only one boss.

Muthambi later told Khoza, on the sidelines of the ad hoc committee, that if her "one boss" Zuma was happy with Motsoeneng's qualifications, then she was too.

Khoza said the late Jackson Mthembu's predecessor as ANC chief whip, Stone Sizani, didn't appreciate parliamentary oversight over the executive.

She said:

When Mthembu became chief whip, they suddenly had space to express themselves.

She believes Mthembu was conflicted - he wanted to do the right thing, but he was also a party loyalist.

After she saw the public protest against Zuma, after he fired Pravin Gordhan as finance minister in April 2017, she began to publicly express her criticism of the party leadership.

"I felt we were not listening to the people," she said.

Protect 

Their orders were to protect Zuma at all costs.

"I then decided to defy the leadership," she said. "They wanted us to protect something that was wrong."

She was called ill-disciplined and she said Mthembu grew "increasingly uncomfortable" with her.

"He didn't take kindly to me criticising the ANC."

Meanwhile, then ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe (now ANC chairperson and minister of mineral resources) and his deputy, Jessie Duarte, started attending ANC caucus meetings. Neither were ANC MPs at the time.

Mantashe and Duarte told the caucus the ANC was under attack, and they needed to defend the party.

Mantashe said an attack on the ANC's president is an attack on the whole organisation.

Khoza said she didn't agree: one man, Zuma, was a liability for the ANC.

Mantashe said voting with the opposition in a motion of no confidence in Zuma would be the highest form of betrayal.

Khoza said, in the run-up to the August 2017 motion of no confidence in Zuma, ANC deputy chief whip, Dorris Dlakude, told ANC MPs who wanted to vote according to their conscience, they didn't become MPs through their conscience, but through the ANC.

At the ANC policy conference in July 2017, Fikile Mbalula, currently transport minister, threatened MPs who wanted to vote according to their conscience, likening them to suicide bombers.

She also perceived Mantashe and Duarte's presence at caucus meetings as intimidation.

Khoza received various threats, and this included her family.

For the most part, she delivered her testimony matter-of-factly, but a hint of emotion entered her voice when she spoke of the threats to her family.

She lost her husband when she was 28 and her son was one year old.

People came to her house and told her son that she killed her husband.

"I now had to start defending myself. They were making my life at home miserable," she said.

She said her academic work was also scuppered because of her dissident stance.

Threats 

Khoza recalled an incident, where she spotted a black Mercedes Benz in her neighbour's driveway upon her arrival home. A person, clad in a black balaclava and gloves, slipped as he took his shot.

"That's how I survived."

She said there were several other threats as well.

"My children were forever worried whether I would come back alive."

She pointed out that she lives in KwaZulu-Natal, a province known for its political violence.

Khoza was one of the ANC MPs who voted in support of a motion of no confidence in Zuma in August 2017 and she made it known.

She said, on 14 August 2017, Zuma said the ANC's unity is paramount and that steps should be taken against those MPs who voted with their conscience.

The following day, Mantashe announced that the ANC's national working committee had decided to institute disciplinary steps against the four MPs who voted with their conscience.

Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo asked if she understood this to mean that they were expected to ignore the ruling by the Constitutional Court. Khoza answered in the affirmative.

Zondo said:

"I can't understand that. I can't understand how that could be."

In response, Khoza said: "The situation in the ANC was that anyone who sought to uphold the rule of law would be punished. I'm a living example of this."

Khoza left the ANC - and, after stints at the African Democratic Change Party and OUTA, she is now with Herman Mashaba's fledgling ActionSA.