Opinion

Those wishing to protect Jacob Zuma from the gruelling questions of Advocate Kessie Naidu and others at the Hefer Commission are running short of excuses to keep the deputy president out of the spotlight.

The ANC, clearly desperate to keep its second highest ranking official away from the controversies under investigation, has been adamant that it was not necessary for Zuma to testify before Judge Hefer. The party has insisted that all documents that had been collected by its intelligence operatives under the stewardship of Zuma as ANC intelligence chief have been surrendered to the state.

However, Mo Shaik, a former ANC intelligence operative, last week told the commission that he had kept a list of 888 people that were investigated for spying for the apartheid regime. Shaik has said that he kept the file for Zuma.

Shaik also said he had testified before the commission to protect his former commander, Zuma.

He has since done a somersault, saying that he gave the documents to the state over the weekend.

Despite Shaik's efforts, Zuma has not been cleared. The commission, and indeed the people of South Africa, can only discover the truth if Zuma was to openly testify before Hefer.

Zuma needs to tell the SA public, who pay his salary, if indeed Shaik kept the file on his (Zuma's) instruction. If that is true, he must also tell us why he kept the file when the ANC had directed otherwise.

Zuma's office has been implicated in leaking information about the Scorpions' investigation on the deputy president.

Unless Zuma takes the stand and tells the commission his side of the story, we may never know the truth.

And for the sake of transparency, accountability, and good governance - ideals which the government professes to be pursuing - Zuma needs to testify. Trying to stop him from doing so is tantamount to depriving South Africans of the truth.

No one's interests will be served by these hide-and-seek games. Least of all Zuma himself.

With acknowledgements to the editor and The Star.