Johannesburg - Former President Jacob Zuma’s testimony before the State Capture Commission of Inquiry has entered the third and Zuma has made some startling revelations during the opening two days of his testimony. We take a look at five crucial things that Zuma has told the commission so far.
Ngoako Ramatlhodi is a spy
On his first appearance before the Zondo Commission the former president sent the entire nation into shock when he alleged that Ngoako Ramatlhodi the ANC veteran, who had served as the Public Service and Administration Minister for two years during Zuma’s second term, was a spy. During his own testimony before the commission Ramatlhodi had claimed that the Gupta brothers had so much influence on Zuma during his presidency that they could summon him to their Saxonwold compound at will and would even boast about being to do so.
When Zuma appeared before the commission he fired his own retorting salvo at Ramatlhodi, saying: “I have known him (Ramatlhodi) for many years for what he is, but I have never shown it because I thought he will change. What made comrade Ngoako to behave the way he did here, to say I have auctioned the country and in the NEC I just do what I like? He is carrying out an instruction. He was recruited when he was a student in Lesotho, to be a spy, and he finds it very comfortable to come here.”
Siphiwe Nyanda was a spy (Nyanda was the 1st democratic (head of the SANDF)
Spy allegations did not only stop with Ramatlhodi as Zuma also implicated former South African National Defence Force head General Siphiwe Nyanda. Zuma insinuated that Nyanda, the former Communications Minister in his first term at the Union Buildings, had a relationship with the apartheid regime’s intelligence services during the struggle for the country’s freedom. Nyanda has since referred to Zuma as a bitter and twisted old man over the allegations.
Zuma and the attempts on his life
When he began his testimony Zuma said that he had been the subject of numerous attempts on his life over the course of the past three decades even claiming that suicide bombers had been sent to a Maskandi concert in Durban earlier this year to eliminate him, but this did not happen because he had chosen not to attend the event. Yesterday morning before he entered his second day of testifying Zuma claimed that his personal assistant had received a call on Monday evening from an individual she did not know who told her to “Tell Zuma we going to kill him, we’ll also kill his children as well as the people around him.”
Telling Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on the incident, Zuma said: “I’m putting this on record because later on, I’d like to come back to this issue because I have lost a child. I just thought for record, this commission must know, my life, my children and my lawyers’ are under threat.”
Two foreign agencies were trying to run the country
Zuma also told the commission that as part of a sustained three decades long campaign to tarnish his reputation and eliminate him there were three agencies, with two being foreign and the other a local agency, that were not only behind the smear campaign against but also had people infiltrate the ANC on their behalf with the view of nurturing them to lead the party.
The arms deal
Zuma said that the Arms Deal saga in which he is implicated and facing multiple corruption charges at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, was also part of the smear campaign against him, claiming that his removal as deputy president in 2005 and the subsequent institution of the charges were proof of this. He has continuously denied involving in the long running Arms Deal debacle and told the commission that “I was not at national level but at provincial level when suddenly I had to be charged and before this I was removed as deputy president in 2005 because I was implicated in the arms deal. Bear in mind I was not in national, but in provincial.”