Ramaphosa is corrupt and incompetent: Zuma

0Shares

Msholozi presents himself as a victim of political victimisation

Former president Jacob Zuma cast aside all protocol and unwritten rules about former presidents and launched into a scathing attack on his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, calling him corrupt and incompetent.

In a no-holds-barred press conference held in Johannesburg, Zuma went for the jugular, accusing Ramaphosa of putting the interests of his funders and the global community before those of the country and its people. He also decried his conviction and imprisonment last year and berated the Constitutional Court for acting outside its powers by sending him to jail “without a trial”. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who presided over the two-year commission of inquiry into state capture, also came in for some virulent censure from the former president.

Zuma’s 15-month sentence for contempt of court arising from his refusal to testify before the Zondo commission ended earlier this month. He spent the bulk of the sentence at his Nkandla home after his ally, former Correctional Services commissioner Arthur Fraser, overrode the parole board and granted him medical parole.

PLAYING THE VICTIM

In his lengthy tirade, Zuma referred to conspiracy theories, accusing global powers of wanting to control South Africa’s political leadership so that it could access the country’s resources. He also played his now familiar victim card, saying: “People have in recent years been blinded by the fact that we now have democratically elected black governments. They’re blinded from seeing that our elected governments are still expected to serve the commercial interests of colonial powers ahead of those of the people who elect them.”

He added: “The whole society was mobilised against me” during his presidency.

Zuma declared:

Books were written, misleading documentaries were made and comrades were turned into enemies under the illusion of some new idea called ‘state capture’. My imprisonment came as part of a long campaign aimed at removing me as president and punishing me for having not been a darling of the commercial interests that seek to profit at the expense of our poor people.

RAMAPHOSA ‘VIOLATED CONSTITUTION AND OATH OF OFFICE’

Zuma, who was found by the Zondo commission to have been central to the capture of the state by various stakeholders such as the Gupta family, did not hold back in accusing his successor of corruption.

He said Ramaphosa’s conducting private business at the Phala Phala farm while serving as president of the country was corrupt and unconstitutional.

Zuma said, contrary to the belief that he had a bunker with a lot of money stashed in it, there was no evidence found because he in fact had no money. However, his detractors had kept quiet about the money on Ramaphosa’s farm, despite all the evidence proving it.

“Conducting private business while holding the high office of president is nothing but corruption, which is inconsistent with the nature of that office and the Constitution. It’s inconsistent with the oath of office taken by the president and those who defend such deeds, both in the executive and the legislature, commit treason against our Constitution.

“Suffice to say that your president has committed treason. No president should conduct private business while in office,” said Zuma.

He said the country’s problems were too big for a president who was busy hustling on the side.

He said:

I’m assuming that what President Ramaphosa has said about the many dollars under his bed or in his furniture shows it’s true that he conducts private businesses while serving as president of our country. That, on its own, is unconstitutional and those who applaud him for doing so commit the most disgusting transgression.

‘YOUR PRESIDENT IS CORRUPT’

Addressing the July unrest, in which more than 350 people lost their lives after he had been incarcerated, Zuma expressed condolences to their families, saying the tragic incident should never be allowed to happen again in the country. However, he said people should not be fooled by crocodile tears, referring to the distress shown by Ramaphosa when talking about the tragedy.

“The brutal truth is that they don’t care about black lives. What kind of people are we who can lose almost 400 lives over one judicial mistake and continue with life as if nothing’s happened?” he asked.

Ahead of the ANC national conference in December, Zuma discouraged members of the party from voting for people who wore ANC colours while advancing their own agenda.

Adding insult to injury, he said, Ramaphosa had been trying to cover up the Phala Phala scandal, including by suspending Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.

This, he said, had also been the finding of the Western Cape High Court.

“Your president is corrupt. Yet the busy-bodies and self-appointed anti-corruption crusaders and NGOs are dead silent. It’s interesting to observe the silence about the many allegations of criminality against the current president. All the so-called civil society organisations that parade as defenders of the rule of law are nowhere to be seen in demanding accountability from him,” he declared.

Ramaphosa, he said, had suspended the head of a chapter 9 institution while she was investigating him, but there was “total silence about it”.

Instead, the courts were defending the lack of accountability.

Zuma wondered what the situation would have been had he been the one accused of having millions of dollars hidden under mattresses.

“I wonder what would have happened if that had been an allegation about Nkandla. Let’s not beat about the bush regarding the neglect of constitutional duty that comes with abusing the office of the president to conduct private business,” he said.

ZONDO ‘AIDED GLOBAL COMMERCIAL INTERESTS’

Zondo was not spared by Zuma, who blamed him for initiating his incarceration.

“My imprisonment started with Justice Zondo setting out an unprecedented legal process against me, in terms of which I became his target of abuse,” he said.

Zuma accused Zondo and the government of targeting him after being pronounced guilty of state capture by the media.

“From the start of the state capture commission, it became clear to me that Justice Zondo, as chair of the commission, wasn’t interested in establishing the truth, but was himself involved in building up the narrative of state capture. In other words, Zondo wasn’t a neutral judge leading a fact-finding commission, but was running a process of writing a report that would establish the guilt of all those who’d been accused of state capture because of their known association with me,” he said.

Zondo, he said, had failed the test of his oath of office.

“The fact that he’s now sitting at the helm of our judiciary should be a matter of great concern not just to me, but to all other freedom-loving compatriots. The commission of state capture was never about uncovering the truth about the commercial interests that have been influencing government policies and decisions ever since the establishment of our democracy in 1994.”

Defending cadre deployment, Zuma said one of the commission’s agendas, which had emerged from the final report, was to take away the ANC’s ability to implement party policies in government by suggesting that the system of cadre deployment was unconstitutional.

He said it was clear that the Zondo commission had been established as a platform to “eliminate the progressive and transformative elements” of the country by constitutional means.

“I referred to two intelligence reports that made it clear that there was a carefully chosen special layer of South African leaders whose role is to ensure that the resources of our country and its global influence on the continent are reorganised to serve this global agenda in which the interests of our people don’t matter,” he said.

He also maintained his innocence and insisted that he and Zondo were friends, even though the chief justice was denying it.

‘I PREVENTED LOAD SHEDDING’

Zuma said that, under his leadership, there had been no load shedding for three years between 2015 and 2018, when he left government.

“Load shedding started immediately after certain agreements were concluded with independent power producers and hasn’t stopped since then.

“Why does the current leadership fail to get a handle on the issues at Eskom?” he asked.

He claimed that it was public knowledge that a few of those power producers had invested millions into the campaign of one of the candidates at the 2017 Nasrec conference.

This was in reference to allegations that some businesspeople had funded Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign, which the Public Protector had tried to investigate, but was prevented from doing so when the court ruled that the matter was out of her jurisdiction.

Zuma said he had employed a competent team of executives and engineers, including Brian Molefe and Matshela Koko, to ensure that the country did not suffer.

Although he did not mention Ramaphosa by name, Zuma implied that the president had sold state-owned enterprises cheaply to the individuals who had funded him in 2017.

“SAA is gone, Eskom’s in a shambles and we accept this incompetence. What will now follow are our ports, rail and water,” he said.

WILLING TO GET BACK TO LEADERSHIP

On his nomination for election to serve on the party’s top six, Zuma said that, if the conference wanted to deploy him, he would not refuse.

Age, he said, meant nothing in the ANC. Quizzed about his health, he said there was nothing wrong with him because he was not bedridden.

Last month, Zuma released a statement urging ANC members to nominate Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as president, while making himself available for the position of national chairperson.

He said his view on the ANC’s step-aside rule was that it undermined the Constitution of the country.

“Our Constitution says one is innocent until proven guilty, but the step-aside rule says otherwise,” he said.