Johannesburg - Under-fire ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule is heading to court, but not to the Commission of Inquiry into state capture, where damning corruption allegations were made against him this week.
Magashule told Independent Media this week that he had been advised by his lawyers to approach the courts to challenge former ANC Free State treasurer Mxolisi Dukwana’s explosive testimony at the commission chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on Friday.
He said the commission’s findings were not binding as it was not a court of law.
“The court route is the better route,” Magashule said, adding that he has consulted his lawyers.
The commission’s rules state that a self-incriminating answer or a statement given by a witness is not admissible as evidence against that person in criminal proceedings brought, except where the person is charged with failing to appear before the inquiry or lies when giving evidence.
The former Free State premier is also taking aim at journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s new book Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture, which exposes a corruption ring he is alleged to have headed in the province.
Myburgh writes that Magashule demanded 10% kickbacks from business people in exchange for securing lucrative contracts from the provincial administration.
Dukwana, a former Free State education and economic development MEC, told the commission that Magashule was receiving R1 million a month from Rajesh “Tony” Gupta and had been working for the controversial family for many years by the time they offered him a R2 million a month bribe to facilitate a lucrative project.
But Magashule has hit back, saying Dukwana’s evidence before the commission was all “lies, well co-ordinated and fabricated” and that ANC members and South Africans would not be fooled.
“The truth will prevail,” he said.
Magashule asked why Dukwana declined a decade-long R2m a month bribe offered to him by Gupta in 2012 and accepted R10000 from the same person two years later.
Dukwana testified that he was given R10 000 by Gupta for petrol after having travelled from Welkom to Johannesburg.
Earlier this week, Magashule said he told Myburgh that he cannot write allegations about him.
“Why does he call them allegations? I said ‘make them facts so that I can act legally against you’,” he said.
He said Myburgh made every Free State tender as if, as premier, he was in charge of tenders.
According to Magashule, all the allegations of looting made by Myburgh were part of a plan aimed at damaging his character, a plan that he said started before the ANC national conference in 2017.
Magashule demanded that Myburgh bring one person who will go to court and prove he gave him 10% and state how this was done.
Responding to attacks by the ANC and its leaders, the book’s publisher Penguin Random House, said it does not have any axe to grind with any political party and just wants to publish books that people are interested in reading.
It said it wanted to make it very clear that it stood by the book and its author.