Zondo: ANC must explain failure to act against corruption at SOEs
The chairperson of the commission of inquiry into state capture wants the African National Congress (ANC) to detail the action it took against alleged corruption at some state-owned enterprises.
Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo made the remarks as the commission resumed its work following a Covid-enforced break.
The public hearing resumed in Johannesburg on Monday morning after proceedings were halted due to the national lockdown in March.
Former Passenger Rail Agency Of South African (Prasa) board chair Popo Molefe was back on the stand.
Molefe told the commission that, during his tenure as Prasa chair, he had briefed ANC’s top six leadership on the board’s investigations into alleged corruption at the entity.
Molefe claims former group CEO Lucky Montana had misled the board into approving a project for the manufacturing of trains worth R2 billion.
But he says the party's leadership failed to report back to him.
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"The judgments in court were evidence arising out of our investigations and confirmed the correctness of the positions that we took, it proves a lie what Mr Montana and all of these people were saying,” Montana testified on Monday.
"It went up to the Constitutional Court in some instances. Our position as the board was repeatedly confirmed.
"Yes, it was public knowledge, the leaders knew about the corruption.”
Zondo says the question at hand is "if they are told by the chairperson of a board of a government entity such a Prasa that there's a lot of corruption, I want to know what they did after that about what you told them".
"We are all aware of what is in the public domain abut other SOEs - SAA, Eskom, Denel - and it would appear that these things don't start now.
"They seem to have started a long time ago and it's only proper that this commission ask the question to some of those people ' where were you?', What did you do about this? Did you not have a responsibility to do something about it?".
Zondo says it could be said that had Parliament done its job certain things would not have happened.
"I don't think this commission can be said to have done its job without hearing from parliament".
Zondo says he has spoken to speaker of parliament and the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) that they would have to testify at the commission to give an account of what they did against corruption in certain SOEs.