Johannesburg – President Cyril Ramaphosa has conceded that the outsourcing of procurement by the government had weakened the state and was used for state capture.
Testifying before the Zondo Commission into state capture for the second and final day, Ramaphosa said he was opposed to outsourcing.
“I am generally opposed to outsourcing because I think outsourcing weakens the state. One of the challenges we are facing now is that the state has been weakened and the efforts we are making now is to strengthen the capacity of the state,” he said.
“We do have people in the public service who are well trained, skilled and well educated. During the period of state capture, they have been side-lined, and some of them even left the state because the tasks they were doing were generally outsourced. This outsourcing is a clear demonstration of capture. I am now saying we need to insource,” he added.
Ramaphosa said consultants should do “exceptional tasks” that cannot be performed by public servants.
Ramaphosa faced a tough morning of grilling from evidence leader Anton Myburgh over what happened at Transnet.
Myburgh mentioned evidence of instances of millions lost to outsourcing of duties that could have been performed by internal staff at Transnet.
He pressed Ramaphosa on how government allowed the Guptas to commit “grand scale” looting under the auspices of former Public Enterprise Minister Malusi Gigaba and Transnet boss Brian Molefe.
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