WATCH | Day 1 of Ramaphosa at Zondo commission recap

President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared before the state capture commission on Wednesday as the head of the ANC. Ramaphosa’s opening statement highlighted corruption allegations, the notorious Gupta family and how the ANC is hoping to rid the organisation of patronage and wrongdoing.

Ramaphosa was grilled throughout the day by the state capture inquiry on the ANC deployment policy and its relevance.

After deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo queried the president how it was possible that state-owned entities could be run so ineffectively under the ANC, Ramaphosa said there was a “massive system failure” when it came to the dire state of the SOEs.

“Some of it was so hidden, so masked that you could not see there was a particular individual there to advance a particular agenda,” said Ramaphosa. “We had a very 'silo' style of work where almost everybody kept to their own lane, where there was no collegiate involvement.”

The president followed in the footsteps of ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe who recently told the commission that the policy was meant to advance the ANC's political mandate within the state.