President Cyril Ramaphosa will only act on the recommendations of the commission that probed state capture when the final of its three reports has been handed over to him.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will only act on the recommendations of the commission that probed state capture when the final of its three reports has been handed over to him.
Ramaphosa received the first part from the commission chair, Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, in a handover ceremony on Tuesday at his Union Buildings office, and said the document would be available to the public later in the evening.
Zondo said the first report incorporated three volumes on state capture, with the first centred on national carrier South African Airways and its subsidiaries including SAA Technical and SAA Express.
The second volume deals with the Gupta-owned The New Age media entity, which enjoyed government business in the form of advertisements and often hosted business breakfasts with different government departments under former president Jacob Zuma’s administration. Zondo said the last volume would focus on the South African Revenue Service as well as public procurement.
A summarised version of the entire state capture report will be available when the commission concludes its work in February, the commission chairperson added.
Ramaphosa said he would submit the full report to parliament by 30 June, with an indication of his intentions with regard to implementing the commission’s recommendations.
“As I indicated to the court, only once the final instalment has been received will it be possible to have complete sight of the report’s implications and to develop an
implementation plan on the recommendations. Government will therefore not make pronouncements on the findings nor recommendations of the commission’s report before having received all parts of the report, and having considered all three parts of the report,” he said.
“We will, however, commence with the consideration of the parts of the report as they are submitted to the presidency, and will be putting in place appropriate mechanisms to effectively and thoroughly process the findings and recommendations. This will include engagement with all relevant departments, agencies, public entities and other stakeholders as considered necessary.”
Ramaphosa added that while the government would only act once it received the full report, this did not preclude any state institutions from acting within their statutory mandate on any of its findings and recommendations.
He said the process of implementing the recommendations would be fully transparent and those implicated would be held to account.
The president told journalists at the handover ceremony that the state capture report would help the government embark on a clean-up campaign and the eradication of corruption in state entities.
Working through the report would be an involved process bringing in various government departments in the analysis of its recommendations. Actions to be taken immediately would include resolving the lack of coordination between state departments and the problems related to procurement.
“We don’t have long to wait — we have waited for four years — and all we are now going to be asking is that you have the patience until June when we will come out more fully and precisely in how we are going to be implementing the recommendations,” Ramaphosa said.