ANC offers top 6 meeting minutes on Nene's firing if record will help state capture commission
4 October 2018
If the state capture commission wants the ANC to present minutes of a meeting where former president Jacob Zuma told the party's top six of his decision to axe Nhlanhla Nene during his first stint as finance minister, the party will do so.
This is according to the party's head of the office of the presidency, Zizi Kodwa.
The commission looking into state capture heard on Wednesday from Nene that Zuma informed him that he was being removed as the country's finance minister in a meeting that only lasted a few minutes on December 9, 2015.
Nene also claims Zuma told him he had briefed the top six about this decision. The party's top officials at the time included Cyril Ramaphosa, Gwede Mantashe, Jessie Duarte, Baleka Mbete and Zweli Mkhize.
Nene also alleges it was his refusal to toe the line when Zuma wanted to seal a nuclear deal with Russia that got him removed from National Treasury.
Kodwa, who sat throughout the proceedings with some of the officials from Treasury, told journalists that if the commission wanted anything from the ANC that would help with the terms of reference for the inquiry, the party would help.
No ANC comment on testimony
"If minutes will help us to validate what is brought up here, we would do so," said Kodwa on the sidelines of the commission.
"Our own objective of this commission is to unearth the truth," he added, insisting that the ANC was not on trial.
Kodwa refused to give his thoughts on Nene's testimony, telling journalists that the party would not engage in running commentary on testimonies delivered by witnesses at the commission.
"We are pleased that a sitting minister has come forward [and] want to make a call to the colleagues, whether [they] be present ministers or former ministers, to come forward with information... be they state employees or government employees, they must come forward and help with the terms of reference," said Kodwa.
He said the ANC's national executive committee, which is its highest decision-making body in between conferences, had decided to approach the commission after being implicated by some of the country's big banks during their testimonies last month.
The ANC has denied trying to influence the banks after they decided to stop doing business with Gupta-linked companies, insisting it just wanted meetings with the banks to understand the decision.
