South Africa: Cyril Ramaphosa defends his choices as former vice-president of Jacob Zuma
Cyril Ramaphosa testifies before the Anti-Corruption Commission of Inquiry, August 11, 2021. REUTERS - SUMAYA HISHAM
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3 min
The Head of State is back before Judge Zondo's commission of inquiry since Wednesday, August 11.
An uncomfortable witness position for Cyril Ramaphosa, he who was the vice-president of Jacob Zuma and must now justify himself.
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With our correspondent in Johannesburg,
Claire Bargelès
Sitting in the center of the amphitheater, Cyril Ramaphosa wishes to show the image of a
cooperative
witness
and responds kindly to the series of questions.
Vice-president of Jacob Zuma from 2014 to 2018, he discusses the options that were presented to him during the revelations of the corruption scandals: “
The first option that I could have chosen would have been to resign from the executive.
But that would have diminished my possibilities of contributing to the fight against the capture of the state.
It would have made the headlines, and then nothing.
"
No question either, according to Cyril Ramaphosa, to remain silent, or to participate in this looting of public resources.
The only solution: resist from the inside.
"
This approach has finally made it possible to obtain the great changes that the country has undergone over the past three years, and to begin the reconstruction of our damaged institutions
," he defends himself.
"
Wave on certain questions
"
To qualify the many abuses of the ANC, the president speaks of "
failures
", "
errors
", "
incidents
". What to leave skeptical John Steenhuisen, the leader of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance: “
I think it is a good thing that the president appears before the commission. But he remained very vague on certain specific questions. And we saw last week, with
the reshuffle
, that he is not ready to clean up. It recycles some of the people who caused all of these problems.
The president is scheduled to conclude his testimony on Thursday.
The commission of inquiry was set up in 2018 to shed light on the many corruption cases at the top of the state and detail how a system of power grabbing was put in place by former President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.
It is for refusing to appear before this same commission that Jacob Zuma
is currently serving
a fifteen-month prison sentence.
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South Africa
Cyril Ramaphosa