Zondo unhappy with Gordhan no-show at commission
Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo slammed Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan for ditching his appearance before the commission of inquiry into state capture on Wednesday.
Gordhan was due to be cross-examined by former South African Revenue Service (SARS) boss Tom Moyane on Wednesday, but called for a last-minute postponement, saying he has pressing cabinet engagements.
But Zondo was not impressed.
“Mere cabinet appointments on their own cannot be more important than appearing before this commission. There would need to be something more than mere cabinet appointments.
“This commission has a very limited time to finish its work and cabinet commitments are work commitment and if everyone is going to say I have work commitments then we are not going to finish this work,” Zondo adds.
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Zondo said cabinet commitments don’t take priority over the work of the commission.
“What I do know is that the President has told the cabinet ministers that whenever anyone is required to cooperate with the commission, they must cooperate.”
He then threatened to issue summons to possible witnesses to avoid further postponements.
“It may be that our solution is just to make sure that summons are issued against anyone who must appear before the commission because there are too many instances where people say they can’t appear before the commission.”
Gordhan applied for the postponement of his appearance until August 31.
“I will postpone it. I am not happy, but I will postpone to a date that I will fix, that accords with the programme of the commission,” said Zondo.
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