IN HIS last session this year of answering oral questions in the National Assembly, President Jacob Zuma was in a defiant mood, defending his government’s management of the economy, #FeesMustFall protests and the public protector’s report into allegations of state capture.
Earlier, the EFF indicated they would boycott the sitting, stating that they did not view Zuma as a legitimate president.
In March, the Constitutional Court found Zuma had failed to uphold his oath of office for his failure to abide by the public protector’s remedial action for public spending at his Nkandla homestead.
Asked about the concerns of international rating agencies, Zuma said these agencies had particular views in which they saw economies.
“Brics as a grouping, that look at the world in a particular way, has taken the decision to establish a kind of rating agency from another point of view – economically. That is what is happening.”
He said the UK decision to withdraw from the EU was important and his government was carefully looking at how this would affect trade and investment relations.
“Other challenges have been the falling commodity prices which have necessitated that we diversify our economy, and improve the performance of sectors such as tourism, agriculture, beneficiation and other,” said Zuma.
The government also tried to offset stagnant economic growth by promoting trade with other countries and regional integration.
This “so that we do not depend on markets beyond our continent only”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane asked Zuma whether his legal team had advised Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister David van Rooyen to lodge applications to interdict the release of the public protector’s report into state capture.
Zuma said both of the ministers were within their rights to take any disputes they wished to court.
To a follow-up question from Maimane, Zuma said that he had never misled Parliament.
“The public protector wrote a letter to me in March; in that letter she was reporting that (the) DA and others have raised the matter, or brought a complaint (and) that she is still evaluating the report. If I want to comment, I can. That was the letter,” said Zuma.
He said he was never asked to answer questions by the public protector. Only later did he get another letter asking for a meeting.
“Two, three days before the meeting she then said, ‘you will have to answer questions’. I had not received any questions up to that point.”
In a four-hour meeting, Zuma said he was finally given questions and former public protector Thuli Madonsela never told him he was being investigated.
He refused to answer her questions, arguing he had not prepared because it would lead to a legal finding.
@mtyala