State capture started under Mandela: Helen Zille

Western Cape premier Helen Zille says state capture in South Africa started under former president Nelson Mandela.

Addressing a DA meeting in Kempton Park on Thursday night, Zille said Mandela had a blind eye on cadre deployment, which she believes paved the way for state capture.

"From when Nelson Mandela was still a president and from the negotiations in 1996 which saw ... change in the mandate of the Public Service Commission. From 1994 to 1996, from being a body of independent people who would choose senior public servants on the basis of fitness to do the job," said Zille.

She said the change to give power to the governing party to pick senior public servants was the basis for cadre deployment, which let to state capture.

"One area that he [Mandela] had a blind spot to was the danger of cadre deployment ... that set the tone and the trajectory that was inevitable," said Zille.

She said the change brought to the centre power cronyism, cadre deployment, corruption and criminal capture of the state.

Zille said the critics on this view label her as a racist who does not want to see change in the country, but that those had done very little to fight racism and apartheid as she did.

She said based on the ANC's list to parliament, it was clear that President Cyril Ramaphosa had lost the internal battle to Ace Magashule and deputy president David Mabuza.

"[The ANC] is totally irredeemable and can not be reformed," said Zille.

She said those who think they would be voting for Ramaphosa were naive, because they were actually voting for the ANC list.

Zille said the ANC did not understand the distinction between the party and the state and had created a system where it chose who gets tenders.

She called it an ANC economy, which was run by connections to those in power.