Presidency denies allegations about Zuma
Updated | By Lonwabo Miso

"The presidency has noted the allegations that have been repeated in the Sunday Times...There is nothing new in the allegations," said presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj.
He was responding to a Sunday Times newspaper article that detailed allegations of Zuma having accepted a R500,000-a-year bribe from French arms company Thales in 2000.
The SA subsidiary of Thales, Thint, is one of the companies linked to the country's arms-deal controversy. In 1997, Thint was awarded a multi-billion rand contract to equip four new navy frigates with combat suites.
Maharaj said if anyone had allegations related to the arms deal they should approach the Seriti commission established to investigate the matter.
He also dismissed allegations that Zuma drove a recent R1 trillion nuclear deal with Russia.
On Friday, the Mail&Guardian reported that Zuma had taken control of the deal, negotiating directly with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and instructing Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson to sign it.
"On the nuclear deal...There is no substance to the allegation of the president['s role]" said Maharaj.
Asked if there was concern over recent media reports that could be seen as angled against Zuma -- Maharaj said: "We have noted the tendency but we will not speculate on the reasons -- the whys and wherefores".
Maharaj's comments followed those made earlier on Sunday by national ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa.
Kodwa suggested that recent critical media reports were driven by an agenda to discredit the ANC and its president.
"The intention is to discredit the ANC. No-one accepts it [the party]; Nobody likes it," African National Congress spokesman Zizi Kodwa said.
Kodwa also dismissed the Sunday Times article about the alleged bribe as "rumour-mongering...This is a side show, a decoy".
He said media reports focusing on Zuma's role in the nuclear deal missed the point.
"If there is anything that could be suspect in the process; let us separate that from the main issue as [being] a country with a problem of energy," he said.
"People are playing the man and not the ball...People are not interested in building a future in the country; people are looking at what [they] can criticise."
Kodwa said attacks on Zuma were not made on a personal basis but because he occupied the top position in the party.
"It is the fact that he is the president of the ANC -- anyone who occupies this position will face scrutiny...
"No-one could have cared if he [Zuma] was somewhere in Kwazulu-Natal in Nkandla. He will remain under attack."
Kodwa said that the "progressive" policies of the party were at the root of the dislike for the party, driving critical speculation.
"People left the ANC because it embraces non-racialism."
He said there were people unhappy because "we have reconciled with the oppressors".
Other "small right winger [groups] continue to hail insults because they think a communist organ is running South Africa."
The ANC is in a tripartite alliance with the SA Communist Party and the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
Furthermore, Kodwa said, other critics were steeped in an ideology around the "superiority of race: We have got a black majority [that critics see as] inefficient and corrupt".
Kodwa said that there was "no consensus about everything" in the political landscape of South Africa.
"It's not like it's hunky dory."
Meanwhile, also on Sunday, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) issued a statement, in which it "noted with concern what appears to be a concerted effort to destabilise the ruling party".
The union said it had identified that there was also a "new narrative" being used to "target" Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"We believe that these attacks are intended to set an ANC internal agenda where the opposition attacks anybody who it suspects of being a potential successor in the leadership of the ANC.
"This is intended to dislodge the ANC since it won the elections."
(File photo: Gallo Images)
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