President Thabo Mbeki said there was no need to extend the terms of the Hefer Commission of Inquiry, the Sunday Times reported in its early editions.
Mbeki turned down a request for the Hefer commission to investigate allegations that Deputy President Jacob Zuma was involved in corruption connected to the arms deal.
DA leader Tony Leon had earlier in the week asked President Thabo Mbeki to extend the commission’s terms of reference to include probes into Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Penuell Maduna.
”President Mbeki has constituted the Hefer Commission in such a manner as to potentially exclude the central issues from being probed and examined,” he told journalists at Parliament on Wednesday.
In a letter to Mbeki on Wednesday, Leon said it was also inexplicable, and of deep public concern, that the prima facie allegations of corruption against Zuma were excluded from the terms of reference.
”Yet it was this context which created the environment in which the ‘apartheid spy’ slur (against Ngcuka) was unleashed.
”It is the probity in the public discharge of their offices, or otherwise, of the deputy president, the minister of justice, and the national director (of public prosecutions) which require resolution,” he said.
Mbeki told the Sunday Times, while on an official state visit in Mumbai, India, there was ”no need” for the commission mandate to be extended.
He said: ”I don’t know why the DA wants an extension as the commission was created for a specific reason. It has powers to summon people if it deems necessary and I am sure Judge Hefer would invite Zuma to appear before the commission if he feels that there is a need for him to do so.”
Mbeki also questioned why the DA were singling out Zuma. ”Why exclude the others? There have been others commenting on radio and other media about this matter. Why is the DA not saying that those too should be named in the terms of reference.”
Judge Joos Hefer’s one-man commission must determine whether national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy and whether he had abused the National Prosecuting Authority. – Sapa