On Wednesday and Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared before the Zondo Commission to give evidence about what he knew about state capture during his tenure as deputy president. Assistant editor for in-depth news Pieter du Toit, politics editor Qaanitah Hunter, specialist legal journalist Karyn Maughan and political journalist Jan Gerber all listened to his testimony and gave their views on what he said as it happened. This is a selection of their top comments.
Pieter du Toit: In his opening statement, Ramaphosa sought to put distance between himself and Zuma, and he cast himself as someone who resisted state capture from within the state and the ANC. It was also interesting to hear him talk about working in concert with other like-minded colleagues inside the party to neuter capture, which will be grist to the mill of those RETs who contend that Ramaphosa and others, like Gordhan and Derek Hanekom, were part of an insurgency. He also moved quickly to debunk the allegations by Koko and Brian Molefe, two disgraced Eskom executives, who have accused Ramaphosa of nefariously influencing events at the parastatal.
Qaanitah Hunter: I think that there seems to be a realisation from the president that he has to answer questions in detail and that broad answers won't cut it this time around. I think the details around how he resisted certain decisions, like threatening to resign when Nene was fired, is interesting. The questioning before lunch was significant. How much did he know as deputy president? He paints a picture of being blissfully unaware and completely ignorant of what Zuma and his buddies were doing. I find that to be very convenient.
Karyn Maughan: I agree with Qaanitah. Ramaphosa is at his most comfortable when he talks in broad generalities about state capture and how it must be resisted. But he is not great on the specifics and often resorts to claiming that he was unaware of what was going on, when asked to account for his apparent inaction in the wake of clearly inexplicable and damaging decisions by the executive – of which he was a part.
Qaanitah Hunter: Ramaphosa has long maintained that there would have been no good for him and those who were opposed to state capture to resign from government. He has held the view that those who were behind state capture would have just done far worse than what they were already doing. This may be true because those who were the architects of state capture were hellbent on plundering the state. His presence allowed for some resistance or hindered the amplification of the looting of state coffers.Ramaphosa is basically saying that if he criticised Zuma publicly, he would have been fired and that would hinder his efforts to bring about meaningful change. This may be the case, but at times Ramaphosa was so silent on matters, it looked like he was complicit in it.
Qaanitah Hunter: Ramaphosa is again conceding that there has been a "system failure". That seems to be his excuse for everything. How do you solve the problem if he can't pinpoint what exactly went wrong? If you have to take the analogy of a broken car, what value does it bring to shout that the car has broken down. Did the driver make a mistake? What actually happened? Ramaphosa will not say.
Karyn Maughan: This response by Ramaphosa is a cop-out. Molefe says he raised concerns about the ANC allegedly receiving massive kickbacks from a company implicated in corruption. The ANC clearly had the power to investigate this, but did not. It also did not intervene when Montana attacked the Prasa board and Molefe, who were trying to ensure that corruption at Prasa was investigated.
Ramaphosa also denies Molefe's claims that the ANC top six hung him out to dry and did not intervene because it wanted the Prasa board to collapse. He repeatedly stresses that Molefe's concerns should have been addressed by law enforcement. Prasa did, however, lay criminal charges over allegedly corrupt contracts. Law enforcement has yet to act on these charges, which was backed up by thousands of pages of evidence.
Jan Gerber: As he did yesterday, Ramaphosa avoids implicating ANC ministers directly in state capture, this time in relation to the alleged criminality at the SSA. Pretorius asked him directly how it happened under the watch of several ministers. Ramaphosa doesn't address this. Today he has focused on turning his answers around to what his administration is doing.
Karyn Maughan: Ramaphosa says: "We must admit that SSA was one of the agencies that was compromised...our task now is to root out the malfeasance and corruption."He suggests now that the SSA falls under the Presidency, there will be a greater push to rebuild the agency. This appears to be an admission that there has been very little movement on the recommendations of the high-level panel.
Qaanitah Hunter: Ramaphosa seems to be outsourcing decision making to the Zondo Commission. Why must he wait for the commission report to take action against people like David Mahlobo and Arthur Fraser? I think referring to the commission as a "washing machine" that will help clean the state is disingenuous. He is acting like he doesn't have any other evidence of state capture and impropriety. Ramaphosa has had the High Panel Review Report for three years and nothing has been done.
Qaanitah Hunter: Pretorius hits the nail on the head. This is not about whether Mahlobo is guilty or not. This is about why he was appointed in the first place. The evidence against him is massive and it's in the report that Ramaphosa commissioned. The president kicks the can down the road and says he will wait for the commission's report. There is no reason for Ramaphosa to wait for the report. Mahlobo was involved in impropriety when he was intelligence minister. What’s the wait?
Karyn Maughan: IMPORTANT: The State Capture Inquiry has not called Arthur Fraser – who has laid criminal charges against the SSA officials who gave evidence against him and Pretorius – to give evidence before it. His lawyers remain adamant that he wanted to testify, but gave dark hints that he would implicate presidents and judges when he did so. Fraser has also applied to declassify an SSA file on Ramaphosa – a clear indication, arguably, that the SSA under Zuma investigated the then-deputy president.
Karyn Maughan: Ramaphosa suggests that he was involved in a number of "quiet battles" to stop state capture. One of these involved his opposition to efforts to institute a commission of inquiry into the country's major banks – after several closed bank accounts belonging to the Gupta family. He says he and others argued that this was the wrong approach to take.
Jan Gerber: Ramaphosa reiterates that the silence or inaction of some Cabinet members during the state capture years doesn't mean that they were complicit.
"It's a bit too harsh," he says.
There are indications, which might not be obvious to everyone, that they chose their battles and won some of these battles.
Karyn Maughan: Ramaphosa admits that Cabinet processes were abused and misused to ensure that certain matters were placed before the Cabinet without having been properly discussed and prepared.
Matters like the nuclear deal "went under the fence", he says.
Treasury did important work in demonstrating that the deal was not affordable for SA, he adds.
Jan Gerber: Ramaphosa says state capture happened because "certain individuals" took deliberate steps to make it happen. Throughout his testimony, Ramaphosa has been loath to name these "certain individuals".