‘Irregularities not synonymous with corruption,’ Zondo told

Making an opening statement at the judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, former Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) CEO Lucky Montana claimed that irregularities were not synonymous with corruption.

Appearing before commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on Friday, 16 April, Montana addressed a number of matters including the current circumstances of Prasa, corruption in South Africa and his reservations about the commission as a whole.

ALSO READ: Popo Molefe ‘made up facts’ to make Prasa look ‘dysfunctional’

Montana echoed his own words he used in an open letter last year that the commission was “biased” and “pursuing a predetermined agenda”, adding that “South Africa won’t be able to dream big due to the notion of state capture”.

He told Zondo it made him upset that it had taken him two years to appear before the commission.

Commenting on Prasa, he further said the railway agency had collapsed in a short period of time.

“Prasa has made major gains in a short space of time, but those gains have been reversed within three years.

“Between 2018 and to date we have over R30 billion in infrastructure that has been destroyed and part of that reason is because we chose that security contracts are irregular… we are goiing to cancel them and the result has been that the infrastructure has been destroyed in the country. So we are a country that is prepared to lose R100 to save R1,” he said.

Montana further argued that irregularities were not the same as corruption.

ALSO READ: Zuma tried to get Lucky Montana reinstated at Prasa, says Popo Molefe

“Indeed irregular expenditure and a poor control of environment create favourable conditions for fraud and corruption. There are instances where irregularities are a direct result of corrupt practices. However, irregularity in itself doesn’t constitute corruption,” he said.

The former Prasa executive added that people were using irregular expenditure as a barometer to measure corruption, further saying that the courts had fallen into “this trap”.

Speaking on some of the allegations leveled against him, Montana said former Prasa chairperson Popo Molefe and Werksmans Attorneys “were trying to influence” the Hawks while they were investigating Swifambo Rail and Siyangena Technologies.

“They actually took a company… one of the companies contracted to Prasa and they said to the Hawks ‘you guys do not have the capacity to investigate what is called complex investigations. They did that because they wanted to write a script that Lucky Montana and others… we must manufacture evidence inside the Hawks itself,” he said.

READ MORE: Ex-Prasa chief Lucky Montana rails against Zondo commission snub

Molefe made a number of allegations during his testimony last year.

Among them were claims the Prasa board was dissolved because of its investigations into corruption and that the ANC knew about Prasa corruption.

Watch the proceedings below, courtesy of the SABC: