Jacob Zuma-era graft prosecutions too slow – South African judge

A year after the conclusion of a groundbreaking probe into state graft under ex-leader Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s top judge and civil groups on Thursday berated a lack of urgency to prosecute.

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On June 22, 2022, the final of a series of damning reports from a four-year investigation into corruption under Zuma’s presidency was handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Yet to date, no significant progress has been made in prosecuting those involved.

“A year is a reasonable time to reflect,” on the work and progress of the commission, Zondo told a meeting organised by a research think tank in Pretoria.

“I have seen nothing that has changed,” said Zondo who was the lead investigator of a judiciary inquiry.

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The web-like corruption, dubbed “state capture” cost the country the equivalent of nearly seven billion dollars.

“It is appalling that so little has been achieved in response to such a seminal report that cost the nation close to a billion rand,” the South African Council of Churches (SACC) complained in a statement.

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The Council for the advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC), a civil society group, bemoaned in a statement that “a year on, too little has been done”.

JACOB ZUMA WAS SOUTH AFRICA’S FOURTH PRESIDENT IN MAY 2009

Zondo said state corruption placed the democracy of the continent’s most industrialised country “at risk”.

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The investigation concluded that “Zuma was a critical player” in the plunder and mismanagement of South Africa’s state-owned enterprises during his nine years in office.

The 81-year-old became post-apartheid South Africa’s fourth president in May 2009, succeeding Kgalema Motlanthe.

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But his presidency gained a reputation for graft, with cronies influencing government appointments, contracts and state businesses.

Amid a growing outcry over corruption, Jacob Zuma was pressed into establishing an investigative commission under Zondo, who was then Deputy Chief Justice, before being forced out of office in February 2018 by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).