While lawyers for African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma have denied their client discussed “litigation” during a meeting with Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam three weeks ago, Ramgoolam has told the Financial Times the matter did arise. According to allAfrica website Ramgoolam said:
I explained to him that we have an independent judiciary. We don’t intervene. The courts will have to decide.
The prime minister was responding to the newspaper about what his thoughts were on Zuma’s reported efforts to get Mauritius to bar South African authorities from getting evidence to be used in the corruption case against him. There is no reason to think that the prime minister would be lying about such an important matter, which means Mr Zuma did indeed raise the question with him and asked him to intervene.
If this is indeed the case, it is troubling beyond belief because it would suggest that Mr Zuma has no respect for the independence of the judiciary and for judicial processes of another country and has a shocking lack of understanding of how a criminal justice system should work.
By raising the issue with the prime minister and asking him to intervene, Mr Zuma would have reinforced the perception that he operates in a generally corrupt manner and thinks nothing of using and abusing his power to his own advantage. If he could have done this and could have thought it was acceptable to do this, surely he could just as easily have taken a bribe from a foreign arms company in return for a promise to protect them agains investigations by the various constitutional institutions tasked with investigating the arms deal?
Of late Mr Zuma has apologised for or “clarified” many really stupid statements he had made, but there has been a stony silence from his camp about the admission by the Mauritian prime minister. This seems to create an even stronger suspicion that the prime minister was being truthful and that Mr Zuma had tried to get him inaprpopriately to intervene in the judicial process.
I am surprised this is not a bigger story in South Africa, because, if true, it is a real scandal of the gravest sort and in and of itself disqualifies Mr Zuma to hold any public office. If he thinks he can do this kind of thing in a foreign country, what will he do once he gets his grubby little hands on the levers of state power in South Africa? He would make the charges of abuse of power against President Thabo Mbeki (never proven but widely suspected) look like childs play.
I would think that Mr Zuma should either deny the claim by the Mauritian Prime Minister – thereby calling him a liar – or he should step down as head of the ANC. The fact that Cosatu and the SACP is silent in the face of such flagrant attempts at abuse of power is shocking. They should be ashamed at themselves. But I guess they have painted themselves into a corner by hitching their wagon to a man who seems so ethically challenged and they now need to shut up. This is how the high and morally mighty falls in politics.
The fact that South African newspapers blithely reported on this as a small story on the inside pages of their papers is also telling. Have they become so blunted to the ethical corruption of Mr Zuma that they think it is not important, or do they think this is not a big deal. Al and all it seems like a shameful failure on the part of the press to hold the possible potential President of the country accountable for shockingly inappropriate behaviour that neatly exposes his corrupt nature.
Their failure to do so is perhaps a failure of their own ethical compass and when they next moan and complain about freedom of the press I will wonder why we have a free press if that free press is not doing its job properly.
I watched Desmond Tutu last night on the news and as this story broke, this morning, I totally understood him. Must say, for the first time it does not feel too good to be South African.
Hopefully, the isn’t much more coming.
Troubling times indeed. On a positive note one may take notice of the fact (as reported by SABC News yesterday) that, although it is customary for all heads of state visiting Mauritius to also meet with the Chief Justice of that country, Thabo Mbeki specifically refrained from honouring that custom during his recent visit, because of the fact that he does not want to create the impression that he want’s to interfere in JZ’s bid to suppress evidence in the courts of Mauritius. Although I have been very critical and supportive of many other criticisms raised in this blog against TM, this is one point where he deserves credit, whereas JZ clearly tried to influence the executive of Mauritius to exert pressure on the Bench to decide the matter in his favour. That is totally unacceptable.
What exactly does JZ have that allows him to escape much needed scrutiny in matters such as this?
I’ve not seen much of him in the media, but surely his charms and struggle credentials can’t be so overwhelming that it vindicates blatant abuses of power.
Does the voting public, those who would vote for JZ to become President of South Africa, think that they will somehow be exempt from the consequences of a flagrantly corrupt leader?
The thing that JZ apparently has lots of, with which to escape (for how long?) much needed scrutiny – is money. Everyone knows that Senior Counsel don’t come cheap – and to fight matters as he does in the High Court, the SCA, the CC and abroad clearly requires a lot of money. Did everything come from Shabir Shaik (and the others involved in the crooked arms deal), or are there other contributors (besides the salary earned from the ANC)? I should think it would be quite interesting to delve into that question.
Anon: So far, JZ’s legal funds have up to now been paid by the State (that’s us, the taxpayers). This last Monday, it was reported that the state attorney’s office said that the Presidency will not undertake to pay Zuma’s future legal costs until he provides a detailed account of how he spent the R9 million in legal funding he previously received from the State. Aletta Mosidi, head of the state attorney’s office in Pretoria, said: “We have to be accountable to the Treasury and the Auditor General about how the taxpayers’ money was spent.”
JZ has now threatened the Presidency with legal action over the State’s “nonsensical” reluctance to continue paying for his corruption trial defence.
Why is the state paying for JZ’s defence? Was he acting in the course and scope of his duty as an MEC and Deputy President? Surely not … corruption is a personal charge …
Clara:
Thanks for the enlightenment. Even the more reason to feel extremely ashamed at and uncomfortable with the wiles of RSA’s future leader if the NPA does not step up its act to prosecute before the next election; and, if the majority of voters still vote for the ANC at the next election, thereby supporting the undemocratically elected NEC of the ANC.
Faceless one,
Please explain this: ‘undemocratically elected NEC of the ANC’.
Maybe I was dreaming last year in December.
I think the major reason that people aren’t protesting in the streets is because they’ve come to accept that this is Jacob Zuma being well, Jacob Zuma. The belief that they cannot do anything about it is all pervasive. The people of South Africa feel disenfranchised, they feel they have no say in the leaders being elected to supposedly represent their interests.
Khosi
One must remember that, compared to the millions of voters who voted for the ANC in the general election, only a handful delegates, some whose delegations were dubious, got to vote at Polokwane – and that is not necessarily what the majority of demos on the ground wanted. (In other words, what we had at Polokwane was a so-called democracy-within-democracy, but only a selected few got to vote in a way that does not necessarily reflect what the masses at grass-roots level wanted.) That is why it has been pointed out by Prof De Vos and others before on this blog – that a Parliament toeing the line of Luthuli House is in conflict with true democracy.
Faceless one,
But you are failing to separate party from state. The ANC is a party and party members democratically elected their leaders. That has nothing to do with the general election.
Whether the general population supports the results of the democratic Polokwane process is another matter that, at present, also has nothing to do with the relationship between Parliament and Luthuli house.
The way things are going now – with Luthuli House prescribing to both the Executive and Parliament – one cannot really sepatrate state from party – and we are not really living in a democracy. But that is the system’s fault. What I was trying to say by the remark you quote (however, only partially), is that, unless the NPA prosecutes JZ and secures a conviction with mandatory prison sentence; or, failing that, unless the majority of the masses do not vote for the ANC in the next election (thereby in practice electing JZ as the next President of SA), we will all have good reason (in the light of the recent happenings) to be ashamed of(and will be sold out to) the wiles (’skelmstreke’) of the person of JZ, who will then be our (corrupt?) President. We will be the laughing stock of the world.
“Corruption is a personal charge …” My thoughts exactly. Why do taxpayers have to cough up for politicians’ legal expenses? Take Jacob Zuma’s case: if, as Montana says, he was “acting in the course and scope of his duty as an MEC and Deputy President”, he wouldn’t have got himself into this pickle in the first instance. Seeing as he wasn’t, and assuming he has no money, surely it is then up to his party, the ANC, to dig into its own coffers (which should be well-filled by all accounts) to pay for his exorbitantly expensive legal representatives? The nine million bucks was claimed solely (!) for Zuma’s defence in the state’s aborted corruption case against him in 2006.
Are there any hard and fast rules at all about who has to pay in such instances? As a taxpayer, I’m beginning to run out of generosity.
What a disgrace!!!
The premise on which your disapproval rests may not be as firmly established as you might think. What was the context in which the Prime Minister said what he said about ANC President Jocab Zuma’s litigation. Was it brought up by the former himself, or was it an opening line initiated by the Prime Minister himself in way of clearing the air between the two of them, before going onto other matters. Context is important here!
With respect Prof de Vos, none of us at this point in time can conclude for certain that ANC president Jacob Zuma brought up the matter with the Prime Minister from the brief quote supplied.
Let us reserve our better judgement when the whole picture emerges.