Zuma tells South Africa corruption inquiry he is victim of foreign plot
The South African former president Jacob Zuma told a judicial inquiry into corruption allegations yesterday, that he is a victim of a plot by foreign intelligence to seek his downfall. Speaking on the first day of his testimony, Zuma died he had presided over an immense system of corruption and patronage that drained billions from the country’s exchequer.
President Zuma was ousted last year after almost a decade in power. Following a bitter internal battle within the African National Congress Party (ANC). He now faces questioning by Raymond Zondo, a senior judge, mandated to investigate allegations of ‘state capture’ in South African during his presidency. In Monday’s hearing, Zuma stressed two foreign intelligence agencies had recruited spies within the ANC as part of a scheme to control South Africa and that the inquiry was designed to smear his reputation and oust him.
“I have been vilified, alleged to be the king of corrupt people,” he said. “There are people who infiltrated, there are spies who were at work. I asked people in [my] organisation: ‘What have I done?’ They can’t tell me. This commission … must be the grave of Zuma. He must be buried here.”
The inquiry is a result of an ombudsman’s report that uncovered apparent evidence of improper contact between three wealthy businessmen brother - Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta - and senior officials in Zuma’s administration. The report called for an investigation into whether Zuma and members of his cabinet, and some state companies acted improperly.
One of the cases it reviewed was an allegation by the deputy finance minister that the Guptas had offered to secure him his boss’s job, as well as claims that Zuma had directed state firms to award tenders to companies owned by the family. Zuma responded to this allegation, saying the three Gupta brothers are his friends but he denies any influence-peddling in their relationship. The Gupta family have denied the accusations and left South Africa just after Zuma was ousted.
The inquiry has also feature further allegations from witnesses in recent months, describing massive bribes paid by officials for business seeking favours.
Throughout the first day of his trial, Zuma and his lawyers continued to portray him as the victim “I have been provoked and provoked to the last degree … My own family suffers … people forget that I have a family who do not want to hear lies about me,” he said.
Zuma is adamant he can trace the conspiracy against him to the early 1990’s, when he received an intelligence report that two foreign intelligence agencies “from big countries” and a branch of the apartheid government had come up with a strategy to get rid of him.
“They took a decision that Zuma must be removed from the decision-making structures of the ANC. That’s why the character assassination, that is the beginning of the process that has put me where I am today,” Zuma said
Following the hearing, Zuma addressed hundreds of his supporters who had gathered outside the offices of the inquiry in Johannesburg.
Natasha Mazzone, a senior parliamentarian with the opposition Democratic Alliance party, said Zuma was trying to whitewash serious allegations: “The fact that we’ve heard a conspiracy theory dating back to 1990 is proof that the real truth is going to take a long time to extract.”
There have been fears that Zuma will use the hearings as a platform to attack his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, who led the ANC to a convincing election victory in May but has so far been unable to fully assert his authority over the party.
Observers say Ramaphosa needs to move quickly to root out entrenched networks of patronage and graft, often involving individuals who owe senior positions within the party or public administration to Zuma.
Zuma faces a separate corruption investigation involving 16 charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering relating to a deal to buy European military hardware to upgrade South Africa’s armed forces in 1994. He denies the charges.
