The ANC, when it appears at the Zondo commission, will face tough questions on the role it played to enable state capture and corruption in government.
When on the stand, the governing party will also have to account for why it used its parliamentary majority to bully smaller parties and legitimise illegalities.
This was revealed by commission chairperson, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, on Thursday.
According to Zondo, the governing party will, among other things, have to explain why it collapsed parliamentary oversight to protect narrow party interests.
This week, the judge heard from several witnesses how the ANC was willing to bend rules in the name of “ANC unity”, even at the cost of the country.
These revelations gave credence to former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s favourite theme in his speeches during his time at Union Buildings that “the ANC comes before the country”.
Zondo, in an attempt to complete the state capture puzzle, has summoned the ANC to account, adding it was complying and had already filed affidavits, but would still face tough questions.
The ANC will have to appear before the commission finishes its work, because it seems to me it is bound to have to deal with certain matters relating to state capture.
“The ANC will have to appear before the commission finishes its work, because it seems to me it is bound to have to deal with certain matters relating to state capture,” said Zondo.
“When did it start knowing there was alleged state capture happening, and what did they do? What could they have done? Did they act at all, or not act at all?
“And what about the levels of corruption in the country which have been rising for some time, what did they do?” asked Zondo.
“They were the ruling party in parliament, the executive was their executive, the president of the country was the president of the ANC (Zuma) and there were all kinds of allegations concerning him, the Gupta family, state capture and corruption.
“What did they do about all these things?”
Zondo is particularly interested in establishing how the ANC failed to put its parliamentary majority to good use to stop the alleged wrongs.
The judge was triggered by the testimony of former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza, who testified that the governing party was allergic to MPs who stood for what was right, while it rewarded those that did wrong.
This was “concerning” for Zondo, who said the ANC must hang its head in shame for taking the stance that “sent a wrong message to its members, that it is wrong to perform your oversight functions the way you are supposed to”.
But for Zondo, the most worrying thing, was the fault lines within the country’s electoral system for national lawmakers.
Among aspects of legislation that appear problematic, he said, was that members were elected into parliament through a party ticket.
With that kind of system in place, he added, it was almost unavoidable for the governing party not to use its majority to bulldoze other parties, even when it is in the wrong.
“There is this issue that you are brought to parliament by your party in terms of the current electoral system, and when you campaign you do not do so for yourself, it is the party that gets elected.
“If parliamentary oversight failed to stop corruption to rise to the levels to which it is at, it may be in part, because members of the majority party were impeded from doing their work properly, because of instructions taken by ANC leadership,” said Zondo.
It appeared to Zondo that the ANC was never interested in doing what was right from the onset.
“If the ruling party was intolerant of corruption and wanted effective oversight by MPs, anyone in the executive, including the president, could have recalled wrongdoers. Either in terms of their internal party processes outside parliament, or allow their members in parliament to perform their functions of oversight using their own judgment.”
