Johannesburg – President Cyril Ramaphosa has revealed that he threatened to resign as deputy president over the appointment of Des Van Rooyen as finance minister, saying it was the final stage of state capture.
Ramaphosa told the state capture commission that he had phoned ANC deputy secretary Jessie Duarte to express his unhappiness with former President Jacob Zuma’s appointment of Van Rooyen to replace then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, a move led to a negative reaction from the financial markets.
The president said he, Duarte and former ANC secretary Gwede Mantashe had suggested that Zuma remove Van Rooyen and replace him with Pravin Gordhan.
“To me the capture of the National Treasury was almost the final culmination of state capture, because you capture the National Treasury, then you have basically captured the entire state, because that is where the money is, and that is where it is controlled,” he said.
Ramaphosa also told the commission that he became concerned about Van Rooyen’s appointment after a discussion he had with former National Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile, who had had a discussion with Van Rooyen and his advisors.
Since assuming office in February 2018, the government has taken steps to deal with state capture, Ramaphosa said, adding that strengthening law enforcement was part of efforts to fight state capture.
The president said the ANC was serious about rooting out corruption and that a line had been drawn in the sand against graft.
On his role as deputy president, Ramaphosa said he had an option of being confrontational with Zuma and be fired or working with others in government to resist state capture – and he chose the latter.
“Had I and like-minded individuals resigned from the Executive, we would have had no ability to resist some of the excesses that were taking place – and there was a clear danger that without some measure of resistance, there would have been even fewer impediments to the unfettered expansion of the state capture project,” he said.
“It was also important to pursue and sustain the many government programmes that were vital to the transformation of our society and the improvement of people’s lives. The second option was to be more confrontational; to speak out publicly against certain decisions or actions of the government,” he added.
Ramaphosa said state capture activities were “deliberately” hidden and that he came to learn about them through, among others, the Gupta leaks.
Ramaphosa conceded that the ANC’s national disciplinary committee had not been effective in dealing with corruption.
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