Africa-Press – South-Africa. The ANC, Zondo and corruption: Nowhere left to hide, but can the party do anything about it?
Zondo IV is disastrous for the ANC. Released exactly a week ago, it placed the governing party smack bang in the middle of state capture.
The party was responsible for deploying people like Ace Magashule to the Free State, a province with a capital city almost beyond complete disrepair. The ANC stood, hands folded, while Eskom was infiltrated, repurposed, and then stripped by the evil Zuma-Gupta axis. And it was the ANC which saw its deployees being fired from National Treasury to make way for Gupta operatives. Of course, the biggest enabler was the head of state, the ANC’s Jacob Zuma, who stood atop party machinery and operational culture that encouraged dishonesty and corruption.
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is so obviously angry and frustrated, that he repeatedly asks the question: where was the ANC? Where was the party when all this looting took place? Where was the party when it became clear that governance was failing and being usurped by networks of criminals?
The ANC has not responded to Zondo’s questions. It’s very probable that it won’t. Just like the party, quite often, never responded to queries from the media during the period of high capture. In 2016, ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa, now a deputy minister in charge of the State Security Agency – and a gentleman who remains more than a million rand in debt to one of the capture figures – angrily dismissed queries about Mcebisi Jonas being bribed by the Guptas. Jessie Duarte, then deputy secretary-general, was another one who complained about “the media narrative” that the ANC and the Guptas were intertwined.
Well, six years later, and here we are.
Is the party able to turn it around? Will the party act against those named in the report? Will it decisively break with the corrupt elements still nestling in its ample bosom? No, is my answer. But we have smart people in Friday Briefing this week trying to answer that question.
Thoughts? Let us know at [email protected].
Best,
Pieter du Toit
Assistant Editor: In-depth News
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South Africans would applaud a concerted clean-up of all perpetrators accused of corruption in Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s report, but the ANC baulks at antagonising and alienating its own, writes Susan Booysen.
The Zondo report is a teachable moment. Let’s not throw it away
The Zondo report must not meet the fate of the Truth and Reconciliation Report – that of being condemned to the dustbin of history, writes Tinyiko Maluleke.
ANC’s push for unity will get in the way of party acting on Zondo report
The ANC’s pursuit of unity doesn’t allow it to rid itself of state capture architects and enablers easily. In fact, Mpumeleo Mkhabela writes, some of them wear party colours and any talk of unity must embrace them.
How will ANC MPs respond to Zondo report? Don’t get your hopes up
The Zondo report, and its damning findings against the ANC, will find its way to Parliament sometime in the not too distant future. Parliamentary reporter Jan Gerber looks into his crystal ball to see how the comrades could react.
People’s patience with the ANC is fast running out
The same ANC that kept quiet during the Zuma years, is the same ANC that we expect to act against those implicated in the Zondo report. It ain’t going to happen, writes Mbhazima Shilowa.
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