Former president Jacob Zuma at the State Capture Commission on 16 July 2019. Picture Neil McCartney
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has said President Cyril Ramaphosa must confirm that the government will not pay for former president Jacob Zuma’s “latest legal tricks”.
This after Zuma on Tuesday expressed his intention to file an application for leave to appeal the KwaZulu-Natal High Court’s judgment dismissing his application for a permanent stay of prosecution as it relates to the corruption charges he faces.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said: “This is yet another conniving move by Zuma to avoid jail for the over 783 counts of fraud, corruption and racketeering as it relates to his role in the infamous Arms Deal.”
Maimane said that for over 10 years, South Africans had been forced to pay for Zuma’s legal fees “as he has used every trick in the book to delay the inevitable”.
“Last year, following a case brought by the DA, the North Gauteng High Court [in Pretoria] ruled that the state will not fund Jacob Zuma’s legal fees in his defence of his role in the corruption that has afflicted our country. Moreover, the court ordered Jacob Zuma to pay back the money already incurred by the state for his pending cases.”
Maimane said he would on Tuesday write to Ramaphosa, requesting, firstly, that he confirmed in writing that the state would not pay a cent towards Jacob Zuma’s latest “stalling tactic in the form of his appeal”, and, secondly, request an update as to the process made by the state in recouping public money used over the last decade to fund Zuma’s “decade-long plan to escape accountability”.
“It has been almost a year since the North Gauteng High Court [in Pretoria] ordered Zuma to pay back the monies spent on his legal fees and the people of South Africa deserve to know whether this has happened yet.
“We maintain that President Ramaphosa should have done the right thing and made Zuma pay for his own defence, without the courts forcing him to do so. Moreover, that he should have cancelled the agreement between Zuma and the Presidency in which the latter will cover the former’s legal costs relating to corruption charges.
“The DA is committed to seeing justice done, and we will continue to fight for accountability at all levels of government. We will not relent until Jacob Zuma is held to account for his corrupt actions.”
(Compiled by Makhosandile Zulu.)
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