Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
ANC chairperson and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has taken aim at Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, accusing him of mistakenly thinking he has ownership of the state capture report as well as the management and execution of its recommendations.
Speaking at the Africa Energy Indaba on Tuesday, Mantashe said Zondo — who had headed the commission of inquiry into corruption and fraud in the public sector and state institutions — had singled him out when he responded to a recent City Press report which said the minister had been cleared by the ANC’s integrity commission to participate in this year’s general elections as a candidate MP.
Mantashe, who dismissed the report, said he was more surprised that Zondo had responded to the article’s claim that the minister had successfully challenged the recommendations made against him by the state capture commission.
In a statement Zondo said the true position was that “Minister Mantashe’s review application is still pending and has not yet been decided. In fact, no review application against the commission’s report has been decided.”
Mantashe said Zondo should let go and stop making the state capture report about himself. “I think the weakness of Justice Zondo is a very serious weakness. He is given a responsibility to set up a commission of inquiry. He wants to run it. When you talk about the commission you talk about him.”
The Mail & Guardian reported on Tuesday that Mantashe was among the people who had made the list of potential MPs elected by ANC branches. This came out at an extended meeting of the ruling party’s national executive committee on Monday.
In the third part of the state capture commission’s report, Zondo said that upon further investigation, authorities were likely to find evidence that Mantashe was corrupt in dealings with logistics company Bosasa, which paid for upgrades to his home when he was secretary general of the ANC.
On Tuesday, Mantashe said that despite having failed to find any prima facie evidence against him, the Zondo commission had opted to recommend that another institution investigate him.
“They are hoping that another institution will find something. I don’t know what is new that they will find because [the Zondo commission] did an investigation; they found nothing,” he said.
“It’s not his report, it’s a commission report,” Mantashe said, adding that a common mistake was to call the state capture report the “Zondo report”.
In 2022, Matashe argued that the ANC should use the state capture report to review the party’s mistakes and rebuild the organisation, rather than going after those members who were implicated in corruption.
“We can use that report to hunt each other down and destroy everything that is in the movement, we can do that. Or we can use that report to look into the mistakes and weaknesses that are in that report and try to correct them. That is a better option for me,” he said at the time, adding that the ANC should not use the report to “settle scores” within the party.
In his 2018 testimony Mantashe denied knowledge that Bosasa had been responsible for the installations at his home.