In what has become a new national sport, former Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) CEO Lucky Montana has accused the Zondo Commission of being biased and of using the notion of “state capture” to do harm to South Africa’s social fabric.
At the start of the commission yesterday Montana stood up and flayed the commission in a strongly worded diatribe.
As News24 reports, Montana’s tenure at Prasa ended over alleged impropriety regarding the procurement of locomotives.
Montana has maintained that he was in the crosshairs of a campaign to destroy his credibility and the Zondo commission was playing into this.
“I find the commission to be biased and to have a predetermined agenda… I had reservations about this when I received this particular summons. I have been having an ongoing battle with the commission.”
Montana said that the commission has an important role to play as state capture “finds resonance in our national sight. That is why we have news every day in this country. I think our SOEs have played a major role and are being destroyed today.”
“Just under three years, infrastructure has been destroyed to the value of R30 billion. Because we chose to say that security contracts are irregular, so we scrap them. We have chosen to lose R10 in a bid to save R1,” Montana said.
He said the commission was “highly compromised”; it allowed itself to be used as a political instrument to advance a particular agenda in the climate of South African opinion.
“We live in an age of madness. We will never be able to overcome this if our society continues to be beholden to the forced notion of state capture.”
[Photo: Gallo Images / Sowetan / Esa Alexander]