Zondo slams Ramaphosa over flawed appointments
Former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has delivered a scathing rebuke to President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying it had pained him to swear in Cabinet Ministers who had serious state capture findings against them.
‘It was like the President was saying "I don’t care what you have found about these people. I think they are good enough to be promoted",’ Zondo told the Sunday Times.
‘But yes, I had to swear them in, remembering what I found against them,’ Zondo said in an unprecedented attack by such a senior judicial officer on a sitting President.
His comments, on the sidelines of a SA Council of Churches (SACC) anticorruption summit, are especially damning because the inquiry into state capture that he led was considered to be the centrepiece of Ramaphosa’s ‘new dawn’ cleaning of the government stables following the Jacob Zuma years.
Zondo also expressed doubts over the upcoming National Dialogue, saying he was concerned about basic failings in the country that should be fixed without having to convene such a forum.
‘I don’t want to say it's a bad thing ... (but) I’m concerned about simple things that don’t need a National Dialogue. I’m concerned about making sure that in municipalities we have competent people who are doing their job, people who have integrity,’ he said.
Little has come of Zondo’s four-year inquiry, and some ANC heavyweights who were named, such as party chair Gwede Mantashe, have gone to court to contest it.
‘My feelings are that people in SA have seen how slow the progress is with the implementation of the recommendations of the commission, even regarding those recommendations that are being implemented. There are many which are not (being implemented),’ Zondo said.
The Sunday Times notes that he told the SACC event on Wednesday that Ramaphosa had been ‘inconsistent’ in disciplining Cabinet Ministers implicated in wrongdoing.
‘The President is the number one citizen in the country. It is very important that the message he sends, through what he does and through what he says, must be consistent,’ Zondo added.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
