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#StateCaptureInquiry: Zondo asks for Jacob Zuma to provide his side of the story

The chairperson of the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, says he would like former president Jacob Zuma to give his side of the story on allegations against him.

"I have invited the lawyers of the former president [to request] that he could put his version in an affidavit," Zondo said.

This was after evidence presented by former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor which stated that Zuma was at the Guptas' home when she was offered a ministerial post.

Mentor previously told the commission that Zuma did not address the issue of the Guptas offering her a ministerial job, but instead tried to calm her down.

Mentor told the commission that Zuma had walked in while she was in an altercation with the eldest of the Gupta brothers, Ajay, after she had rejected the offer for the public enterprises minister role, in exchange for dropping South African Airways’ (SAA) Johannesburg-Mumbai route in favour of Gupta-linked airline JetAirways.

"I felt that he was not paying attention to issues I was bringing to him, and I felt that he was finding issue with my agitation and anger, and that further frustrated me," she said at the time.

'Politically-decorated expression'

Former CEO of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Themba Maseko also told the commission that Zuma had personally called him asking him to "help" the Guptas, who were looking to secure government advertising for their newspaper, The New Age.

Zuma has not applied to cross-examine any of the witnesses.

On Wednesday, Zuma hit out at the commission of inquiry, insisting that no arm of the state in South Africa has been captured and that it is just a "politically-decorated expression".

"A state is composed of three elements: the legislature, executive and judiciary… that constitutes the state," Zuma told students towards the end of his address on free education at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape.

"Does it mean that these three arms are captured? Is it true?" he asked.

"My view, and I am not disagreeing with anyone, [is that] these are politically decorated expressions. There is no state that is captured. Some people were doing things with [other] people," said Zuma.

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