Opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced earlier totoday that the charges laid at the Rosebank Police Station in Johannesburg relates to Zuma, the Guptas, and their compromised buddies who have “run amok over the last few years, abusing their power to make themselves rich, while the majority of South Africans still live in poverty and without hope of finding a job”.
DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, said from creating “conditional” cabinet appointments, to influencing and fixing government contracts for personal financial benefit – South Africa has now seen “it all”. He said the people of the country cannot sit back while Zuma runs an oligarchy at the expense of this beautiful country.
“Jacob Zuma and his co-conspirators must now face the legal consequences of their alleged misconduct… We contend that the State of Capture report by former Public Protector, Adv Thuli Madonsela, provides extensiveprima facie evidence of corruption, undue influence and interference by President Zuma, members of the Gupta family and other actors – all to further their own personal interests at the expense of the South African people,” says Maimane.
The affidavit filed with the police set out the potential offences. They include:
– (a) general corruption;
– (b) corrupt activities relating to contracts;
– (c) contempt, conspiracy and inducement of another person to contravene the POCA Act; and
– (d) a failure to discharge the legal duty to report corruption transactions.
These possible contraventions relate to, amongst others, sections 3, 12(1), 21, and 34(1) & (2) of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (POCA), the Public Protector Act, the Intimidation Act and the Public Finance Management Act.
The police must now launch an investigation into these criminal charges and the DA will closely monitor the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to ensure that it does its job until Zuma & Co are prosecuted.
According to Maiman he maintains that the charges are not exhaustive, and once a thorough criminal investigation had been conducted into the matter, the total count of charges that could eventually be formulated might number in the hundreds, with the Public Protector’s report only scraping the tip of the iceberg.
He added that his party also requested that, in addition to President Zuma and the Guptas, the police investigate possible wrongdoing on behalf of the board members of Eskom, Mosebenzi Zwane, Salim Essa, Linda Mabaso, Malcolm Mabaso, Eric Wood, Kamal Singhala, Johannes Motseki, Pushpaveni Govender, Des van Rooyen, Duduzane Zuma and others.
“Corruption is not a vague and intangible offence. It is neatly articulated in section 3 of the POCA act. And State Capture is simply another term for the calculated, long term project of corruption, which Jacob Zuma, together with his accomplices, have been carrying out for years,” says Maimane.
