The Jacob Zuma Foundation has hit back at the latest state capture report from the Zondo commission, which was released on Tuesday evening, announcing that it would seek legal consultation on how to appropriately deal with its findings.
The Presidency released the third instalment of the damning report on Tuesday, which included four hefty volumes, and deals exclusively with corruption allegations against Bosasa.
The four parts span more than 1 000 pages.
In its report, the commission deals with the extensive evidence presented regarding the activities and business dealings of the Bosasa group of companies, including its tender practices and contractual relations with government departments and state-owned entities (SOEs).
It also deals with its efforts to gain influence with officials, managers and employers within those departments and SOEs, and the various role-players within and outside Bosasa that were part of these endeavours.
The report recommended that ANC leaders and government officials, as well as Zuma, be investigated for possible corruption.
According to the report, there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect that the former president’s actions in relation to Bosasa were in breach of his "obligations as president under the Constitution".
The report found that Zuma benefited from Bosasa by having lavish birthday parties sponsored by the company as well as alleged R300 000 monthly payments to the Jacob Zuma Foundation.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the foundation said Zuma strongly believed justice needed to be done and would continue to seek legal advice on the way forward.
The statement said it was now well known that Zuma had been denied the opportunity of a neutral platform to put forward his side of the story.
It also noted the application for the review and setting aside of the refusal by commission chair Raymond Zondo to recuse himself, “despite the relationship” between him and Zuma which was recently discussed and “inadvertently confirmed” during recent chief justice interviews, was still pending before the courts.
The foundation said fundamentally, it was for these reasons that Zuma rejected any purported findings by Zondo “which were made without affording him the most basic human rights to be heard”.
“[Zuma] strongly believed that justice must be seen to be done. In these circumstances such ‘findings’ are obviously not even worth the paper they are written on,” the statement added.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
Political Bureau