Johannesburg - The DA has urged the Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to serve former president Jacob Zuma which would force him to testify before the commission of inquiry probing state capture in the country.
Zuma was supposed to resume his testimony before the commission on Monday but his legal team informed the Commission’s secretariat that the former president was unable to appear due to ill-health.
Now, DA spokesperson on justice Glynnis Breytenbach has doubts about Zuma’s poor health.
“While no-one has the right to invalidate any person’s state of health, the reality is that Zuma has been successfully evading accountability for years. The DA therefore urges the Zondo Commission to use its subpoena powers to ensure that Zuma appears before it to answer crucial questions about his role in the capture of the state,” Breytenbach said.
She said for more than 10 years after the “Spy Tapes” saga caused corruption charges against Zuma to be withdrawn, and despite court orders reinstating those charges, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) have been prevented from starting to present its case to to a “Stalingrad strategy” by Zuma lawyers saying that included appeals, applications for a stay of prosecution, and more appeals.
“This is nevertheless the case on which there has been the most movement - Zuma has applied the same Stalingrad strategy that he is now employing in the Pietermaritzburg division of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court to avoid answering probing questions in all other matters that are being investigated, or that ought to be investigated, against him,” she said.
Breytenbach said the Zondo Commission was established in order to provide South Africans with answers saying the Commission’s finding could potentially result in the launch of dozens of prosecutions.
“Its work is too important to be held ransom by an errant former president who by all accounts should have been convicted and jailed for gross alleged financial crimes years ago. The DA call on Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to use his Commission’s subpoena powers to force Zuma to appear before it, so that accountability and justice will not be delayed,” Breytenbach said.