DA says Ramaphosa is wrong about Zondo recommendations not being binding

The DA has accused parliament speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula of shielding President Cyril Ramaphosa from accountability.

This was in reaction to Ramaphosa telling the DA that its push against the ANC’s cadre deployment was misguided since the state capture inquiry report recommendations were “not binding”.

The official opposition party insisted the president is wrong, as treating the recommendations by inquiry chair and chief justice Raymond Zondo as non-binding would render the R1bn-plus inquiry a futile exercise.

The DA believes Ramaphosa should be held accountable for his comments, so it tried to sneak in a question for the president, who is due to be in parliament on Tuesday.

Mapisa-Nqakula stopped the party in its tracks by shooting down the attempt.

“Speaker of the National Assembly Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has refused to allow me to submit an urgent question for tomorrow’s questions to the president session in parliament. I wanted to ask President Ramaphosa to clarify his recent statement under oath that the Zondo recommendations are ‘not binding’,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.

“SA needs to know that the process to end state capture is on track and the R1bn plus of public money that paid for the Zondo commission into state capture was not for mere advice and not spent in vain.

“The president is due to table his plan for implementing Zondo’s recommendations in October. SA needs to put maximum pressure on him to do the right thing by the country and implement the recommendations without fear or favour.”

According to Steenhuisen, it is particularly urgent for the president to put an end to the governing party’s cadre deployment policy.

Zondo branded cadre deployment “illegal and unconstitutional” and the DA has been relentless in attempting to force the ANC’s hand on the matter, going as far as approaching the courts.

“Without cadre deployment, the ANC would not have been able to control almost every institution of state, making state capture possible and shackling all fightback mechanisms.

“The speaker is meant to be an impartial presiding officer of the National Assembly, which is constitutionally tasked to prevent abuse of power by the executive. But she, too, is simply a product of cadre deployment, the ANC’s project to ‘control all levers of power’ in the party’s own interest, which enabled state capture in the first place.”

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