By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has granted the State Capture Commission another two months to complete its work.
In court papers, Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who chairs the inquiry, said he expected to hand over the final part of the report, including findings relating to Eskom, Bosasa and the State Security Agency, to President Cyril Ramaphosa at the end of February.
The estimated 1 500-page document was likely to contain reports on the Free State, the “attempted capture of National Treasury” and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa).
But, he made it clear that the final volume of the commission’s report, which would have been delivered to Ramaphosa on 28 February, “will not make the report complete” – a reality that he took full responsibility for.
The commission last week sought the extension so that it had sufficient and reasonable time to deliver the final part of its report. So far, two parts have been submitted to the president.
In a statement last week, the commission said that if the extension was granted, the commission would submit the balance of its report either at the end of April, or a part of it at the end of March and the final part at the end of April.
The commission, in its application for the extension, said the two released parts address the first six of a total of 20 topics to be addressed in all three reports.
The affidavit states the final part will deal with the rest of the topics and will include a summary of the whole report.
Meanwhile Ramaphosa was also granted four months to respond to the final part of the inquiry’s report.
Ramaphosa also asked for more time to prepare his written submission to Parliament on his implementation plan in response to the report, as he had previously been ordered to do by the High Court.
He had initially been granted an order to submit the final report to Parliament and act on it within four months from 28 February, meaning that his four months would have ended on 30 June.
But after learning that Zondo had approached the court for an extension, Ramaphosa launched his own application, in which he asked for a new date in line with Zondo’s new 30 April deadline for the final part of the report.