Durban - A leader of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has slammed Chief Justice Raymond Zondo following the release of the fifth and final part of the Judicial Commission on State Capture, saying that the commission was fraught with hearsay and gossip.
In a Facebook post Verus Thobelani Ncamphalala, regional secretary of the ANC’s Far North Region, wrote in isiZulu: “Kodwa ke u Zondo uyathanda ukusikhulumisa noma sizithulele nje”, which can be loosely translated to “Zondo likes to get us talking, even when we’ve opted to be quiet”.
To this comment, an account purportedly belonging to ANC provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli responded: “He has this tendency of behaving like umgodoyi. He also made a huge contribution to the crisis which resulted in the loss of lives in July last year (sic).” Umgodoyi can be loosely described as a stray and malnourished dog.
However, Ntuli has denied that the account, commenting on Ncamphalala’s post, belonged to him.
Ncamphalala, on his part, confirmed that it was indeed his account that shared the post, telling the Sunday Tribune that he was unhappy about the findings of the Zondo Commission, particularly where it dealt with things that had not been discussed in the commission.
“The Zondo Commission findings, for one, talk about Arthur Fraser helping Msholozi (former president Jacob Zuma) to avoid going to jail. They were protecting each other and even his release of Zuma from jail.
“The scope of the Zondo Commission did not speak of Zuma’s release from jail. In any case, Msholozi was released from jail when the commission had long been in existence, so where does it take this from? It was an overreach from the commission,” Ncamphalala said.
He lamented that around R2 billion had been spent on the Zondo Commission, but almost all the recommendations say that there are further investigations that are required.
“So what was the purpose of the Zondo Commission? Was it just gossip or what? So it deals with hearsay.
“There are witnesses who went there who the commission said were wasting their time by bringing fiction, people like Vytjie Mentor who made headlines that led to other people's reputations suffering because of such people who today we know what they were saying was untrue,” Ncamphalala said.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE