Former president Jacob Zuma leaves the Zondo commission.

• The Zondo commission of inquiry has warned Zuma to show up for next week’s hearing – or face the consequences.
• The Constitutional Court has reserved judgment on the commission’s urgent bid to compel Zuma to appear and answer questions.
• The inquiry has told Zuma he must still honour the subpoena issued for him to appear from 18 to 22 January, even if the ConCourt has not ruled.

The judicial commission of inquiry into state capture has warned former president Jacob Zuma that he must appear before it next week, regardless of whether the Constitutional Court has ruled on its urgent bid to compel him to answer questions about his nine years in office.

“The commission wishes to make it clear to you that, even if the court has not handed down its judgment by 18 January 2021, you are obliged to comply with the summons and appear before it because the summons remains valid and binding on you since it has not been withdrawn, set aside or suspended,” the commission’s secretary, Itumeleng Mosala, wrote to Zuma on Monday.

Mosala wrote: 

Zuma’s lawyers have yet to comment on the commission’s letter.

It is also unclear, given that the Constitutional Court was asked to rule on the former president’s right to silence, if and how the hearing can proceed without it having delivered its judgment.

The commission of inquiry has also asked the country’s highest court to rule that Zuma had a constitutional obligation to account for his nine-year leadership of South Africa. It wants it to find that Zuma’s walkout at the commission on 19 November 2020, after Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo denied his application for his recusal, was unlawful.

While the commission of inquiry had asked the Constitutional Court to deliver its decision by 10 January, it has since indicated that it could still secure two weeks of Zuma’s evidence if that ruling was delivered by the end of January.

This is a developing story.

File

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has, since Tuesday, been deployed to parts of the Western Cape to support local law enforcement in identified hotspots. 

In response to a query from News24, the South African Police Service (SAPS) said a contingent of SANDF members had started operations in the Cape Town metro on Tuesday and in the Garden Route on Saturday. 

“The areas the deployments already covered include, among others, Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Delft, Kraaifontein, Mfuleni, Mitchells Plain, Lentegeur, Samora Machel and Philippi East. In addition, the deployments focused on the Disaster Management Act regulations in relation to enforcing the curfew between 21:00 and 06:00,” said police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa.

On Wednesday, Police Minister Bheki Cele confirmed the SANDF had been roped in to assist the police to keep bathers away from beaches along the Garden Route in the Western Cape.

The province is also receiving military assistance in its hospitals, having approached the military for staffing assistance. 

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Merona Maledu screen the Deputy Minister Obed Bapela at Tlhabane screening station. Photo by Rapula Mancai

Obed Bapela, the Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), has tested positive for Covid-19.

Cabinet spokesperson Phumla Williams said Bapela tested positive after showing symptoms. He is in self-quarantine. 

It was Bapela’s fourth test for the coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic. 

“We wish deputy minister Bapela, his family, as well as the thousands of South Africans who are battling the pandemic, a speedy recovery,” said Williams.

“The deputy minister has urged all South Africans to play their part by continuing to observe all health protocols, like regularly washing/sanitising hands, wearing a face mask that covers both nose and mouth, and practicing social distancing at all times.”

– Compiled by Jenni Evans

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Lieutenant General Peter Jacobs.

• Suspended police Crime Intelligence Chief, Lieutenant-General Peter Jacobs, has lost a court bid to return to work. 
• Jacobs, and five officers under his command, face misconduct charges which centre on the use of a secret police slush fund to buy Covid-19 PPE.
• The veteran cop claims he is being pushed out for exposing graft in the uppermost echelons of the police. 

An urgent court bid by police Crime Intelligence head Peter Jacobs, in which he and five of his subordinates challenged their suspensions over a R1.5 million Covid-19 personal protection equipment (PPE) procurement scandal, was dismissed by the Pretoria High court on Friday.

The officers – at the centre of an apparent leadership purge in the cop spy unit – face charges of misconduct after allegations surfaced that they unlawfully used the division’s Secret Services Account – a shadowy slush fund used to bankroll covert operations – to purchase PPE.

Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole, acting on findings of an investigation into alleged “irregularities” in their tapping of the slush fund – launched by Inspector General of Intelligence (IGI) Setlhomamaru Dintwe – suspended the six in December.

READ | Crime Intelligence leadership battle heads to court

In his challenge, Jacobs argued that the charges levelled against him and the officers under his command were without basis, and that he was being sidelined for rooting out graft and exposing the looting of the secret fund.

He and the others had challenged the suspensions on a narrow technical point of law, one which hinges on the interpretation of the Intelligence Oversight (ISO) Act, and how allegedly it was subverted in order to suspend him.

He held that Dintwe and Sitole bypassed Police Minister Bheki Cele, who is the only one who can recommend suspensions and disciplinary action once he is furnished with a report from the Dintwe, in terms of their reading of the ISO Act.  

He questioned whether a report even existed, and said because Cele’s office had been circumvented, the move to suspend them was an act outside of the law.

“Whatever communication or engagement that arose between the IGI and the national commissioner is not sufficient to trigger a disciplinary response,” Jacobs said in founding papers.

In December, prior to the suspensions being served, Cele and Sitole had clashed over the proposed disciplinary action and ordered Sitole to halt them. 

Defiantly, Sitole told Cele that he was confident that he was following the letter of the law, and told his political principal that the suspensions would not be held in abeyance. 

READ| Tensions escalate as Cele and Sitole clash over suspensions at intelligence division

Sitole in his submissions countered this, saying that Jacobs – and Cele – had misinterpreted the law.

“[The court challenge] is premised on an interpretation of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act that is legally untenable and unsustainable,” Sitole said in his papers.

“The approach [by Jacobs] trenches on the powers and prerogative of my office… undermines my ability to discharge my obligations and seeks to clothe the minister with a power and function that he does not have.”

The Act, he advanced, does not regulate suspensions, “… or preclude me as the National Commissioner from suspending employees”.

He put up his own stacks of legislation, namely the SAPS Act and the Public Finance Management Act, which he said empowered him to act on the allegations of misconduct, and that his failure to do so would be criminal.

READ| Sitole stamps his authority as Crime Intelligence purge heats up

Acting Judge Jacques Minnaar, handing down judgment on Friday, sided with Sitole.

He found that the Jacobs’ reading of the ISO Act was flawed and was essentially a death knell for hope that the court would return them to their posts.

“It is clear that the provision [of the ISO Act] does not regulate suspensions at all, nor does it create the preconditions sought to be read in by the applicants,” he said.

“It is the National Commissioner’s prerogative as the employer to initiate investigations and disciplinary action against the six,” Minnaar added.

There is nothing, he said, in the ISO which prohibited or precluded Sitole from taking disciplinary steps or launching an investigation if serious allegations of misconduct were brought to his attention.

“It follows that he needs to act swiftly in execution of his mandate,” Minnaar ruled.

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A hospital worker walks amongst patients with Covid-19 in the Covid-19 ward at Khayelitsha Hospital.

• By Wednesday, 844 more people died of Covid-19 in what Health Minister Zweli Mkhize called a “grim milestone”.
• A total of 21 832 new cases were also reported since the last update.
• The 452 deaths in the Eastern Cape were due to data reconciliation between May and November.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said 844 more people have died from Covid-19 by Wednesday.

“Today we have reached a grim milestone as we breach the 20 000 mark for new cases identified in 24 hours,” Mkhize said in an uncharacteristically late update on the situation.

LIVE | All the latest coronavirus and lockdown updates

He said 21 832 new cases were also identified.

This brings the total number of cases in South Africa to 1 149 591.

The total recorded death toll is 31 368.

Of the 844 people who died, 452 were in the Eastern Cape, 12 in the Free State, 96 in Gauteng, 65 in KwaZulu-Natal, 11 in Limpopo, eight in Mpumalanga, 46 in North West, five in the Northern Cape and 149 in the Western Cape.

Mkhize said the 452 deaths reported in the Eastern Cape were due to data reconciliation between May and November 2020. He said it included analysis of community cases in which post-mortem swabs were taken for testing and analysis of clinical records where the diagnosis was unconfirmed at the time of death.

He said the health department is engaging the province to investigate the details of the reporting backlog.

Recoveries are at 929 239 and the recovery rate is 80.8%.

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