Durban - President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and the judiciary were in disgraced former president Jacob Zuma’s crosshairs yesterday, as he delivered a no-holds-barred assessment of circumstances around his prison sentence.
Making his first public speech since his parole ended last month, Zuma laid bare his thoughts on the prison term handed to him by the Constitutional Court in June 2021.
He described his incarceration as the work of sinister forces within the judiciary and the government, including Zondo in his capacity as the chairperson of the state capture commission.
Zuma said although he was relieved that his sentence ended, he remained exposed to the injustice. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Concourt in June last year after being found to have been in contempt of court following his refusal to appear before the state capture commission, citing that his friendship with Zondo rendered him biased.
He said his imprisonment came as part of a long campaign aimed at removing him as president and punishing him for having not been a darling of the commercial interests that sought to profit at the expense of poor South Africans. “I will continue to speak out against a system that seeks to suppress my rights and the rights of many who are targets of the wrong system.
I know I am correct in my resolve to fight such injustices and the abuse of power,” Zuma said. Turning his attention to Zondo, Zuma blasted the chief justice, saying he was not an impartial judge and that his imprisonment started with Zondo setting out an unprecedented legal process against him in terms of which he became Zondo’s target of abuse.
“From the start of the state capture commission it became clear to me that Chief Justice Zondo as chair of the commission was not interested in establishing the truth but was himself involved in building up the narrative of the state capture. “Chief Justice Zondo was not a neutral judge leading a fact-finding commission, but was running a process of writing a report that would establish the guilt of all those who had been accused of state capture because of their known association with me.
Zondo failed the test of his oath of office and that he is now sitting at the helm of the judiciary should be a matter of great concern, not just to me, but to all other freedomloving compatriots,” he said. Zuma then went for Ramaphosa, with the former head of state claiming that there was complete silence by the media on the Phala Phala farm scandal, but it was not the case about the security upgrades at his Nkandla homestead.
“Your president has committed treason, but you’re silent. No president should conduct business while in office, it is not allowed, our country’s problems are too big for a president who is busy hustling on the side,” he said. Continuing his tirade against Ramaphosa, Zuma said a few independent power producers invested millions into the campaign of one of the candidates in the 2017 Nasrec conference of the ANC.
“There are moves to privatise strategic state assets, and surrender key functions of the state to global interests,” Zuma said. Providing analysis on Zuma’s speech, Thabani Khumalo, a political analyst, said Zuma had to be punished for defying the commission. “Instead of leading by example, he left the courts no option but to throw him behind bars.
Zuma formed the commission and he was supposed to lead by example. He should have given full support to Justice Zondo but failed dismally,” he said. Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya did not respond to questions and attempts to get comment from Zondo’s office were unsuccessful at the time of going to print.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE