By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider
Former Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo, has stood up to address the serious implications of President Cyril Ramaphosa knowingly hiring corrupt politicians as Ministers. Raymond Zondo has stated that President Ramaphosa has encouraged the work of politicians that were implicated in the Zondo Commission of Inquiry of State Capture.
The Zondo Commission which was established in 2018, aimed at investigating whether very powerful people were influencing government decisions discreetly for their own ulterior motives. The commission is chaired by Raymond Zondo, who served as Deputy Chief Justice at the point of its inception, and had received funding that reached close to R1 billion over a four year period of its inception.
The Commission had 1,400 that had been implicated for these crimes, finding corruption occurring in entities such as SABC,PRASA and SSA and the commission had called for these individuals to be prosecuted and to reform the system as well as further investigations on these individuals to take place.
Due to these findings, in October 2022, President Ramaphosa decided to make changes in leadership at the SABC as well as freezing their assets worth R14 Billion. Despite Ramaphosa’s awareness of these 1,400 individuals being implicated, of those individuals, only 51 are actually facing criminal charges which caused major anguish to Mr Raymond Zondo who expressed that he had sworn in Ministers who had serious implications made against them, according to the Sunday Times.
“It was like he was saying ‘I don’t care what you have found about these people. I think they are good enough to be promoted.” said Mr Zondo.
At the time of the seventh administration began to transition, Mr Raymond Zondo had served as Chief Justice and noted that this only occurred a few years after he had to swear in implicated Ministers who were found in State Capture dealings.
He has also noted that because of the failure of acting against the State Capture findings this had caused the lack of trust from the public.
This comes off the back of Ramaphosa launching further inquiries in order to investigate the allegations made by KZN Police Commissioner, Lt-Gen Nhanhla Mkhwanazi against the Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu over corruption claims which tie him to criminal gangs.
There is a lack of certainty on whether or not these claims will seriously investigated due to lack of due process in the past; “My feelings are that people in South Africa have seen how slow the progress is with the implementation of the commission’s recommendations, even regarding those recommendations that are being implemented.” said Mr Zondo.
Mr Zondo has expressed that he has doubts over the upcoming National Dialogue as he has expressed that it probably will not prioritize the pressing problems troubling the nation today. The National Dialogue aims to come up with new ways to shape the future of democracy in South Africa. Mr Zondo has expressed that the government should be more concerned with finding the correct and competent people to do their jobs.
“I’m concerned about the interference, even in municipalities. I’m concerned about hospitals. People are going to hospitals and not finding doctors, nurses or medicines.” said Mr Zondo.
In an interview with Advocate Paul Hoffman by SAFM, he expressed the level of disappointment felt by Mr Raymond Zondo stating; “He is disappointed, as are the people who are involved in his commission of inquiry, that very little has come of the recommendations made at the end of that four year process.”
“The once glorious ANC has morphed into a criminal enterprise and that problem is what is at the root of the failure to implement the Zondo Commission recommendations in relation to anti-corruption.” Hoffman added in the interview.