The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked President Thabo Mbeki to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of corruption surrounding Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
The official opposition wrote a letter to the president in which they air their concerns and ask that Zuma’s financial affairs as well as the nature of his financial relationship with Schabir Shaik be investigated.
In the letter the DA says it regrets that Zuma has declined to subject his affairs to a financial audit, as requested by the DA earlier this week.
Zuma was catapulted into the spotlight after the Mail&Guardian reported that Zuma is under investigation by the Scorpions for allegedly soliciting a R500 000 bribe to influence the arms deal.
”The president must act swiftly and decisively in order to set these allegations aside, if they are indeed baseless as Deputy President Zuma claims they are,” the party said.
”These allegations are very serious and raise both questions of potential unethical and criminal conduct — questions that, if proven, could make a mockery out of Deputy President Zuma’s leadership of the South African government’s moral regeneration campaign.”
The DA says that Zuma’s initial statement of innocence is misleading and that Zuma wasn’t as far removed from the arms deal as he claims. They list a scathing letter that Zuma wrote to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts as an example of his interest in the arms deal.
The DA asks that the commission investigate whether Zuma received any payments, commissions or bribes and whether Zuma holds any direct or indirect interest in Thomson CSF, now known as Thales.
”One cannot have a cloud of unresolved corruption hanging over the head of the second most important political office-bearer in South Africa.”