Africa-Press – South-Africa. Parliament’s presiding officers, National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairperson Amos Masondo will meet with Chief Justice Raymond Zondo at Constitution Hill on Wednesday afternoon “to address matters of concern between the judiciary and the legislature”.
“The meeting follows concerns raised by the chief justice regarding the institution’s implementation of the Judicial Commission [of Inquiry] into State Capture recommendations on Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector, Including Organs of State,” reads a statement from Parliament.
Addressing a Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) symposium that analysed the state capture report’s impact on democracy last Thursday – a year to the day that the final instalment of the state capture report was released, Zondo defended his inquiry’s wide-ranging recommendations, which included the establishment of a commission to monitor state capture if Parliament fails in its legal duties.
Zondo asked: “If another group of people were to do exactly what the Guptas did to pursue state capture, Parliament would still not be able to stop it. That is simply because I have seen nothing that has changed. If Parliament won’t be able to protect the people’s interests, who will protect the people?”
Parliament reacted with shock and strongly objected to his statements.
The legislature’s presiding officers requested an urgent meeting with Zondo to “clarify any potential misunderstandings and to establish a common understanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of each arm of government within the context of Parliament’s implementation of the commission’s recommendations”.
Since the release of Zondo’s report, the ANC had blocked every attempt to investigate the Phala Phala allegations against President Cyril Ramaphosa using the same arguments it did when it refused to investigate state capture.
Parliament has also been sluggish in dealing with the report’s recommendations, with the National Assembly rules committee not meeting in the first quarter of the year and bucking the recommendation to establish a committee to oversee the Presidency by insisting on a “study tour” to the UK.
The person coordinating portfolio committees’ response to the Zondo recommendation, chair of chairs Cedric Frolick, was himself implicated in the report.
ANC MP and chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration Tyotyo James dismissed Zondo’s criticism of cadre deployment as unlawful and unconstitutional saying: “Unfortunately, Judge Zondo is not governing on our behalf.”
DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube agreed with Zondo, as did Public Interest SA, which said in a statement that Zondo was “correct to lament the snail’s pace with which the National Assembly is processing his recommendations”.
On Thursday, the presiding officers will brief the media on the “progress” made in executing the Zondo commission’s recommendations.
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