Zondo Commission secures extension until 30 April, Ramaphosa gets 4 months to respond

23rd February 2022 By: News24Wire

Zondo Commission secures extension until 30 April, Ramaphosa gets 4 months to respond

Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo
Photo by: Reuters

The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has granted the State Capture Inquiry another two months to complete its work – and President Cyril Ramaphosa will have four months to respond to the final part of the inquiry's report.

In court papers, Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who chairs the inquiry, said he expected to hand over the final part of the report, including findings relating to Eskom, Bosasa and the State Security Agency, to Ramaphosa at the end of February.

The estimated 1 500-page document was likely to contain reports on the Free State, the "attempted capture of National Treasury" and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa).

But, he made it clear that the final volume of the commission's report, which would have been delivered to Ramaphosa on 28 February, "will not make the report complete" - a reality that he took full responsibility for.

According to a list of topics provided by Zondo, the final part of the report would address "the closure of the Gupta bank accounts and the Cabinet response", the Estina Dairy Project, "parliamentary oversight", the SABC and ANN7, EOH and the City of Johannesburg and "The Big Picture".

The final part of the report will be released on 30 April.

Ramaphosa also asked for more time to prepare his written submission to Parliament on his implementation plan in response to the report, as he had previously been ordered to do by the High Court.

He had initially been granted an order to submit the final report to Parliament and act on it within four months from 28 February, meaning that his four months would have ended on 30 June. 

But after learning that Zondo had approached the court for an extension, Ramaphosa launched his own application on Sunday, in which he asked for a new date in line with Zondo's new 30 April deadline for the final part of the report.

In an urgent hearing that was decided on Wednesday morning, the High Court granted the orders that Zondo and Ramaphosa sought.