State capture is "political propaganda" and former public protector Thuli Madonsela's report on state capture is a "political tool", according to President Jacob Zuma. Zuma was interviewed by ANN7 on Monday night.
According to News24, Zuma said the evidence for his assertion that state capture was political propaganda was that a "small" number of people were implicated, and that none of the three arms of government had been captured.
Madonsela recommended that a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture be set up, but that the Chief Justice should determine who heads it, instead of Zuma. This was because Zuma is allegedly implicated. But Zuma took Madonsela's report on review, and now says he is willing to institute the inquiry but that he should choose who will chair it, and that the new public protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, should investigate the allegations against him.
"When I establish the commission of inquiry, one of the things they will have to clarify [is], 'what is a state capture?' Nobody said there are judges or the whole Parliament is captured... I think there was a political reason that this report was supposed to be used to deal with a number of other people, I think so," Zuma reportedly said.
Eyewitness News (EWN) reported that Zuma said the commission would have broad terms of reference "that will cover everything because we don't want to leave anything out".
He reportedly said those who have used state capture as a political tool would regret it once the commission is established.
"They might regret, in fact, they will regret. That's the point I've made because it's not going to be choosy. It's going to go to those who have done wrong things (sic)."
Zuma also said South Africans should judge his legacy for themselves, and said he had picked up where former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela had left off, according to Eyewitness News (EWN).
"I introduced quite a number of new departments. We've been talking about rural development. And I thought talking about it and not doing anything was not helping. It was, therefore, important to focus and I established a department; I also worked on establishing another one which was [the department of] performance monitoring and evaluation," he said.