Cape Town – The Economic Freedom Fighters on Thursday sent a warning to President Jacob Zuma that it would launch another court challenge if he were to defy former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s directive to establish a commission inquiry to continue her investigation into allegations of state capture.
This comes after Zuma told the National Assembly on Wednesday that nobody could order the president to set up a judicial commission of inquiry, nevermind instruct him to ask the Chief Justice to appoint a judge to lead it.
“No one, no matter what position they hold, can instruct the president to establish a commission, and even tell the process through which you must go,” he said during presidential question time in the chamber.
Legal experts have said Zuma could contest Madonsela’s report on the basis that the Constitution says it is the prerogative of the president to appoint commissions of inquiry.
EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said it appeared that the president had learnt nothing from being ordered by the Constitutional Court earlier this year to comply with Madonsela’s earlier report on the Nkandla scandal, in which she instructed him to repay state funds spent on adding luxuries to his rural home.
In that case, brought by the EFF and the Democratic Alliance, the court found that he had failed to uphold the Constitution by not heeding the remedial action she ordered. It upheld an Appeal Court ruling that found the chapter nine institution’s findings to be binding and reviewable only by a court of law.
“Zuma has not learned from the Nkandla process which ended in the constitutional court forcing him to pay back the money,” Ndlozi said.
“But like we managed to make him comply with the Nkandla Report remedial action, we will force him to comply with the remedial action as stipulated in the State of Capture Report.”
Ndlozi said Madonsela made it clear in her report on allegations that the executive and state-owned enterprises had been improperly influenced by the Gupta family, State of Capture, that the Chief Justice, and not Zuma, must appoint the head of the inquiry because the president himself was a subject of the probe.
“This recommendation is based on the fact that our constitutional provisions never anticipated that appointment of judicial commissions, which are the prerogative of the president, could be constituted to investigate the president himself/herself.
“If Zuma feels otherwise, he must be prepared to answer to the courts as to what must be done in order to hold him accountable in relation to allegations that he has grossly violated the Executive Code of Ethics.”
Madonsela found that Zuma may have flouted the law by sharing information on Cabinet appointments with the Gupta family and by failing to act on claims by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas that the Guptas tried to offer him the post of finance minister.
Ndlozi said the EFF firmly believed that Zuma had in fact allowed the Gupta family to dictate to the State.
“One thing that we shall never accept is that nothing must be done to hold him accountable for relegating our constitutionally democratic mandate to govern South Africa to the Gupta family.
“We are ready to repeat the Nkandla lesson and embarrass Zuma through courts, if he is not going to comply with the State of Capture Report recommendations in terms of remedial action.”
African News Agency