Johannesburg - Former national director of public prosecutions Mxolisi Nxasana told the Zondo Commission how Jacob Zuma confronted him about allegations that he had been in secret meetings with former NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka.
Nxasana returned to the stand on Monday at the inquiry and laid out how his relationship with the former president soured immediately after he was appointed as the NDPP.
Nxasana said he had been hearing rumours around Durban and Joburg that Zuma was unhappy with him and believed that he (Nxasana) was plotting to reinstate corruption charges against him.
The former NPA boss said he was surprised by these rumours because he had no plans to do so and had not even seen Zuma’s NPA files as they were kept by deputy national director of public prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba.
Nxasana detailed how his relationship with Zuma was so bad that he had to ask people around Zuma to communicate with the former president on his behalf.
He said he approached Zuma’s lawyer Michael Hulley who assured him that the president had no issues with him. It was Hulley who later informed Nxasana at a prosecutors' event that Zuma was planning to institute an inquiry into his fitness to hold office.
Nxasana later challenged Zuma’s plans through an interdict and it was only then that the former president agreed to meet with him and talk.
At the meeting which took place in late 2014, Nxasana said Zuma accused him of being in secret meetings with Ngcuka.
Ngcuka had been a thorn for Zuma as he had been the man who was in charge of the NPA when corruption charges were instituted against him.
“I remember he (Zuma) said that one of the things he was told is that I was meeting with Bulelani Ngcuka; who was the first director of public prosecutions. He said he heard that I was meeting Ngcuka at a certain flat in Durban and that those people who told him were even prepared to show him the flat that Ngcuka and I would meet. I have never even talked with Mr Ngcuka. I have never even met with him,” Nxasana said.
Nxasana said he had also told Zuma about the issues within the NPA and an alleged plot to oust him as the NDPP.
He believed Jiba and former NPA official Lawrence Mrwebi had been behind the charge to remove him. Nxasana believes Jiba was upset because she had not been appointed as the NDPP even after she was allegedly promised the job by former justice minister Jeff Radebe.
Nxasana said he had received an affidavit from an NPA official, Terrence Joubert, who worked at the NPA’s risk department.
Joubert told Nxasana that Jiba had instructed a SAPS official named Kenneth Mhlongo to collect “dirt” on Nxasana as she believed he was not the appropriate man to lead the NPA.
Nxasana said he shared the affidavit with Zuma at their 2014 meeting and the former president did not comment on the information.
The commission also heard details leading up to Nxasana's removal as NDPP.
Zuma had informed Nxasana in June 2014 that he would institute an inquiry into his fitness to hold office and after the inquiry dragged on for more than a year, the pair reached a settlement in May 2017.
The former NPA boss left with a R17 million golden handshake which the court later ordered him to repay after the court ordered his successor, Shaun Abrahams, to vacate office.
The inquiry continues.