South Africa

DAYS OF ZONDO

About the Guptas: ‘What we know today, we didn’t know then,’ ANC’s Gwede Mantashe tells inquiry

About the Guptas: ‘What we know today, we didn’t know then,’ ANC’s Gwede Mantashe tells inquiry
ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe at the Zondo Commission in November 2018. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sowetan / Masi Losi)

The ANC’s first big hitter appeared before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry on 14 April as its national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, began testifying about the party’s role in the era of State Capture.

Mantashe’s opening statement dealt with cadre deployment, the party’s relationship with the Gupta family and with how the system of parliamentary oversight works in a party-led, proportional representation electoral system. 

“No ANC MP was told to stop thinking,” said Mantashe as he explained how the party views parliamentary oversight. 

He spoke about how the party had come to be influenced and ensnared by the Gupta family and its patronage networks. “A few years after arriving, Mr Ajay Gupta became a member of President Thabo Mbeki’s International Advisory Council. [Later], he approached the ANC to establish ANN7 and The New Age,” said Mantashe, explaining that the ANC had welcomed the opportunity to diversify the media. 

“We needed diversity. At that stage we did not know their other businesses.  What we know today, we didn’t know then,” he said, adding that the party only clicked to the family’s shenanigans when it landed a private wedding plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base in 2013 and when Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula (then serving in a different portfolio) remarked during an ANC NEC meeting that he had been told of his deployment by the family.  As the family’s hold over the state became clearer, the ANC did not tell its MP’s not to ask questions or “stop thinking”, said Mantashe.  

Mantashe said he realised ANC MPs could face tension between party loyalty and loyalty to voters. “We have stressed they should apply their minds to their purpose in Parliament [which is to] enhance the developmental agenda. They should be thinking MPs [but] South Africa is a very young democracy, and we should tread with caution when making majority decisions like the removal of a president. 

“I have experienced a party removing two of its former presidents, and the consequence [was] a breakaway from the ANC [the formation of the now-defunct COPE].” 

Mantashe said the party did not believe in the “Samson Option”, where MPs had to be made to choose between party and state. 

The party did not encourage willy-nilly support for motions of no-confidence in Parliament. “We can’t create a crisis and collapse the country. All parties operate caucus systems [which exercise party control].”

The party did not have a cadre deployment policy but a deployment policy, “and it makes a huge difference”. 

Mantashe replaced ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, who was supposed to have represented the party at the Zondo Commission.  

Commission chairperson Judge Raymond Zondo announced that President Cyril Ramaphosa would no longer appear before the commission on 22 and 23 April due to state obligations.  He would still appear on 28 and 29 April. DM

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Gerhard Pretorius says:

    It would be naive to believe Samson’s view that they did not know then what they know now.
    He is a master of deception who has cut his political teeth in the tough world of coal mine unions and it is his job to do some damage control on behalf of the cANCer. To play ignorant is a lame excuse.

    • Annelie De Wet says:

      Ignorant for a month or so yes… After that … happiness … money to be made! He chose the first month of ignorance to comment on… thinking we are going to buy it. Halleluja etc. And some people will … for a month or so. Using a moral stance like a thief in a candy shop. Agge nee.

  • Dennis Bailey says:

    So not much of any gravitas was said at all really.

  • Phil Evans says:

    “What we know today, we didn’t know then,” I guess that sums it up. And there was us thinking that Gwede Mantashe’s ANC was qualified to run the country!

    • Annelie De Wet says:

      He knows the truth … and uses it as a barometer against which to construe lies. He may outwit God one day. And that’s just that. No one knows how clever or stupid God is.

      • Andrew Blaine says:

        But according to the Good Book He is all- knowing and beyond understanding so I believe
        He will understand and interpret each and every action, thought and motivation?

  • Charles Parr says:

    Gwede will wake up one day and find that it wasn’t a bad dream but a reality created by him and his mates. Not to worry, the wealth derived will support several generations of non workers.

  • Nick Griffon says:

    I wish the evidence leader would ask him if he is willing to apologise to South Africa for protecting JZ in the numerous votes of no confidence now that he apparently have all the facts that they did not have then. I want to watch him squirm around that question.

  • Katharine Ambrose says:

    So.. When they did suspect something was up… what did any of them.. the NEC, the party structures, individual MPs the veterans, branches. the struggle heroes, the Mbeki faction on early retirement.. Do?
    Nada.. A total moral failure.

  • Sergio CPT says:

    Absolute nonsense! This is nothing but a cop out and meant to sanitize the putrid anc from their failure and responsibility in grand theft from the taxpayer and every SA citizen. The public knew what the Guptas and their enablers were all about.

  • Sergio CPT says:

    It is a case of turning a blind eye to the corruption/state capture, shielding and abetting the culprits as they are anc cadres. Only when this obnoxious party realized that they were going to lose support did they start to move on corruption. Being dragged kicking and screaming I might add.

  • Sergio CPT says:

    Mantashe is disingenuous at the very least, nothing but a party hack who put and continues to put party interests above those of the country. Another lying low life so endemic in the rotten stinking party that it has become.

  • Jon Quirk says:

    Let us unpick the statement what we did not know then, but we know now.

    These, who claim ignorance then, are our political masters who have, and had, access to information beyond that we can dream of, yet now they proclaim total ignorance, seek to claim the protection of the fig-leaf of ignorance. The mind simply boggles.

    If Uncle Gweezy had even a shred of integrity,, he and the entire NEC and ANC leadership, would fall on their swords, disappear over the horizon and never be heard of again.

  • Keith Scott says:

    “What we know today, we didn’t know then,” – The first and last words of a complicit politician.

  • Roger Sheppard says:

    Disgustingly unsettling to face the fact that Magashule before the Zondo Comm would inevitably have produced far different answers than the phlegm-filled guttural utterances offered by Mantashe, and most likely ‘A’ M’s would have offered far greater information. Mob-led ANC cheats ..again! Slime!

  • Viviana Smith says:

    Mantashe’s ramblings about not wanting to collapse the state or endanger the ANC are complete nonsense – the state/ANC was nowhere near collapse when they removed the previous president. A very poor excuse for some very extreme failings of moral character on his and the ANC’s parts.

  • Peter Dexter says:

    I can’t believe this statement, “the party only clicked to the family’s shenanigans when it landed a private wedding plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base in 2013” Is he trying to tell us that the captain of the Gupta’s plane “just asked OR Tambo control for permission to land at Waterkloof,” and nothing had been pre-arranged??? His credibility was always pretty low but that is stretching things.

  • Alley Cat says:

    No ANC MP was told to stop thinking said Mantashe. Well they didn’t need to because they have never and will never START thinking,that is obvious.
    “What we know today, we didn’t know then,” well of course not, if you remain with your head in the sand you will NEVER know(what you don’t want to know)

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