JSC chairman, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. (Oupa Nkosi/Judges Matter)
The speaker of parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, recently received an opinion from the legislature’s legal advisers on acting on the recommendations of part three of the Zondo state capture report and has been accused of playing for time when pressed to table it to initiate the process.
The report was sent to parliament by President Cyril Ramaphosa shortly after he received it at the beginning of March as it contained findings against former and current members of parliament, relating to Bosasa’s sustained campaign to secure and renew state contracts that saw it pay bribes of more than R57-million.
This part of the report also implicates Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and former minister Nomvula Mokonyane, of whom Chief Justice Raymond Zondo wrote that her denial that she received a R50 000 monthly retainer from Bosasa falls to be rejected.
This part of the report also implicates Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and former minister Nomvula Mokonyane, of whom Chief Justice Raymond Zondo wrote that her denial that she received a R50 000 monthly retainer from Bosasa falls to be rejected.
Mokonyane, as a former MP, is beyond parliament’s reach, as is Vincent Smith, the former chairman of the portfolio committee on correctional services who faces corruption charges for allegedly receiving inducements from Bosasa not to block the extension of its lucrative logistics contracts with the government.
But this does not apply to Mantashe, who is a sitting MP and received security upgrades to his homes in Elliot and Cala in the Eastern Cape and Boksburg in Gauteng courtesy of Bosasa.
Zondo found that there was “reasonable grounds for suspecting that Mr Mantashe accepted or agreed to accept gratification” and cause for believing that further investigation would establish a prima facie case of corruption.
Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula disclosed, at a meeting of parliament’s programming committee on Thursday, that after receiving the report, she solicited legal opinion and that it was on her desk.
She said this after Democratic Alliance deputy chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said Zondo’s findings against members of parliament and the institution itself were such that the institution should not wait, as it intended, to act only once President Cyril Ramaphosa presented the executive’s plan on how to deal with its recommendations on state capture.
He had committed to doing so by August, but that has been delayed by the fact that Zondo has been granted a high court extension until 15 June to deliver the fifth and final instalment of his report.
Mapisa-Nqakula took exception, saying the injunction carried a suggestion that parliament would fail to act on the report.
“Of course parliament is committed that, once the president presents the report to parliament after four months, in fact the president will not just be providing us with a report, he will be submitting a plan of action on how to deal with the recommendations of the Zondo report and parliament will then deal, among others, with areas that directly affect their work of oversight in the different portfolios.
“So there is no doubt that parliament will deal with the Zondo report, except there is a delay in doing so because we are waiting for the president to make that submission.
“We are not running away from the responsibility of dealing with the Zondo report.”
She said members were free to discuss, elsewhere but not in the programming committee, what it expected parliament to do “beyond what we are currently doing as parliament, which is first to get legal opinion, which legal opinion by the way, is on my table”.
ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina ventured that it would be improper for parliament to act on any part of the report before it was handed to Ramaphosa in its entirety, because in law the commission of inquiry reported to the president.
“We as parliament have not instituted the state capture commission to look at state capture, it was to the president and the cabinet, and therefore in accordance with the rules the president is supposed to formally bring the report to parliament and then we act thereafter.
“The report is not going to vanish …. we cannot be taking the report piecemeal, let’s allow the report to come in fully.”
But this stance ignores the fact Ramaphosa had elected to send the third part of the report to the legislature, a step not taken with the other three instalments released to date, and that in terms of the separation of powers, it is not for the executive to dictate the speaker how to proceed.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. (Elmond Jiyane)
A well-placed parliamentary source confirmed that nothing prevented the legislature from initiating its own due process to act on the findings. The legal opinion, which was sent to the speaker a few weeks ago, sets out how this should unfold.
Although there is little the institution can do about former MPs, those still in their seats and found by the Zondo commission to have received money from Bosasa are likely to find themselves before the joint committee on ethics and members interests for failure to disclose income and donations.
This would probably apply to Mantashe and to senior ANC MP Cedric Frolick, who was present in the programming committee as the house chairperson of committees.
Zondo detailed how Frolick, whose links to the Watson brothers go back to the 1980s, was apparently used by them to convince Smith to soften his initial hardline stance against extending Bosasa’s deals with the department of correctional services.
The opposition was not aware that the speaker had received legal opinion, but being made aware of that has strengthened its resolve to push for action on the Bosasa chapters of the report, plus Zondo’s broader finding that parliament failed in its oversight duty as the state capture scandal was unfolding, in large part because ruling party MPs marched to the orders of Luthuli House.
Gwarube said Mapisa-Nqakula’s remarks signalled “reluctance” on the part of parliament to act and her insistence on waiting for Ramaphosa to pronounce himself showed a skewed understanding of the law and risked a repeat of precisely the deference to the executive and the lack of oversight, which Zondo had laid at door parliament’s door.
“We do not have to wait for the president to table the Zondo commission report to parliament. There is work parliament must be doing already. The recommendations that are going to be tabled by the president are not concerning the business of parliament, they are in relation to the work of the executive
“We are not going to let this go, because ultimately parliament was found wanting by the Zondo commission in terms of holding the executive to account. We are doing it once again where parliament is not flexing its muscle.”
Gwarube was drafting a letter to demand that the speaker release the legal opinion.
“We need to know what she was advised to do, and we need to make sure it does happen in that way. The Zondo commission’s recommendations need to be implemented and parliament needs to have a hard look at itself and fix what has been broken.”
The speaker’s office declined, by the time of going to print, to comment further on the subject.
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