By Zukile Majova
President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed claims that his performance in the first term in office has been underwhelming.
Ramaphosa, who is due to sign the National Health Insurance Act into law on Wednesday, said his first term has been about rescuing the country from state capture.
Addressing the ANC Progressive Business Forum’s business luncheon in Centurion on Tuesday, Ramaphosa said he stopped the evil guys in their tracks.
“In the past few years we faced the spectre of state capture, where we had to deal with state capture and respond to what it has done to our country.
“And I can say without any equivocation that one of the things that we did was to stop state capture…
“And those who had all those horrible designs on our country, on our government, on our economy, we stopped them in their tracks,” said Ramaphosa.
The president takes credit for ending state capture which involved disgraced former president Jacob Zuma and his friends, the Gupta family.
During this period, a group of corrupt business leaders captured the Presidency and used their power to influence decisions of the state, including the hiring and firing of ministers and heads of state companies.
Not only did Ramaphosa get rid of this lot in government, he also forced them out of the ANC.
A lot of them, still being investigated for various crimes, have joined Zuma in his Umkhonto Wesizwe party.
Now that the SAPS special and commercial crimes units have been beefed up and the National Prosecuting Authority reinforced with over 1,000 prosecutors, Ramaphosa said it was time to prosecute those implicated in state capture.
“Some who were the faces of state capture have run away. But we also know that some still remain embedded in the networks that were set up during that period.
“And those are precisely those that we are pursuing, aided by the Zondo Commission report which identified precisely what was done.”
Former president Thabo Mbeki recently outlined how the SA Revenue Service was captured and how the rogues nearly captured the National Treasury.
Pictured above: ANC President Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the party’s Progressive Business Forum luncheon in Tayfin Estate in Centurion.
Source: X
