UNLAWFUL, highly irrational, and dismally failed to find evidence beyond innuendo and conjure that former president Jacob Zuma had abdicated his executive authority to the Guptas and therefore was captured by the controversial family.
These are some of the adjectives used by the Jacob Zuma Foundation to describe the state capture report by commission chairman Chief Justice Raymond Zondo who in his findings has recommended that the former president should be criminally investigated.
Foundation spokesman Mzwanele Manyi briefing reporters in Joburg on Saturday, 25 June revealed that Zuma will be taking parts of the report which specifically implicated him on review among the actions the former president will be taking in the wake of the report.
Other actions would be, reporting Zondo to the Judicial Services Commission, Zondo's friendship with Zuma to be probed as well as his disparaging remarks made against Zuma in his findings.
Manyi charged that Zondo transversed the political terrain in his findings when he found that President Cyril Ramaphosa winning the ANC 54th conference at Nasrec saved the country from further state capture.
These findings were served factional battles within the governing ANC, said Manyi.
Zuma has also instructed his lawyers to accelerate the ongoing review of Zondo recusing himself from hearing Zuma's testimony in the commission.
"He has also asked his legal team to look into reviewing the so-called Zondo commission report. Given all his transgressions and displays of incompetence, the foundation has also separately instructed its own lawyers to look into the possibility of challenging the unlawful appointment of Justice Zondo as the Chief Justice of South Africa despite his dismal performance at the JSC interviews as observed by millions of South African on national television," Manyi.
The announcement had created a media hype after it was said that the former president was going to attend the briefing but Zuma was not in attendance and his lawyer Advocate Dali Mpofu said they had advised him not to attend as a precaution lest he violated his parole conditions.
Manyi charged that Zondo in his findings directly insulted Zuma personally is someone who was not worthy of being voted by millions of South Africans not once but twice and this proved that Zuma was not going to get a fair hearing.
"Such hatred for another human being by a sitting sitting judge calls for all-round condemnation. His conduct, one deserves to vindicate the position that he could never receive justice in the hands of someone who harbors such deep-seated resentment towards him and his supporters in the ANC and in society at large.
"Finally, it is a view of the foundation that it was condescending in the extreme for Chief Justice Zondo to think that simply because personally he does not highly rate president Zuma, a political view to which he is entitled as an individual, it must therefore fall that the people of South Africa would be putting themselves at risk if they elected someone like a freedom fighter, who is the last president of the ANC to win the electoral support of more than 60%, Chief Justice Zondo is basically finding fault with the 60% of the electorate that voted for the ANC," he said.
Manyi argued that Zuma was forced to appoint Zondo because the public protector then Advocate Thuli Madonsela had taken his constitutional right to appoint a commission when her remedial action said former chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng should do so because Zuma was conflicted.
He said Zuma had tried to challenge this in court but when Ramaphosa took over the administration he abandoned that path.
