Johannesburg - Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo says he will raise any concerns he has if, for example, he feels President Jacob Zuma's terms of reference for the state capture commission might hamper his team from doing its work properly.
On Tuesday, Zondo described the allegations of state capture contained in former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's report as so serious that they threatened the country's "democracy".
The terms of reference for the commission, to be headed by Zondo, have become a contentious issue, with some of Zuma's supporters wanting the scope of the investigation to be widened to 1994.
Zondo said he was still waiting for Zuma to finalise the terms of reference, which would include the (government) gazetting of the regulatory framework for the commission.
Commission regulations allow chairpersons to appoint experts to assist the commission in various investigations.
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“I have taken the attitude that because there certain controversies with regard to the terms of reference, I will wait for those to be finalised. When they are finalised and are brought to me, I will look at them.
"If I have any concern with regard to whether they will allow me to do my job properly, I will raise that then,” he said.
“In my view the allegations are so serious that they go to the very foundations of our constitutional democracy. As you know, some allegations are that certain people or individuals offered ministerial posts to certain people and it would have been people who had no constitutional power to make any such offers. In my view that is very, very serious," he added.
With other investigations currently under way into state capture-related corruption allegations, Zondo said the commission will make a determination on how it will incorporate the work already done by other institutions.
These included a parliamentary inquiry into Eskom and the work of the National Prosecuting Authority's Asset Forfeiture Unit, which has already seized R220 million in assets belonging to the Gupta family and companies linked to them.
“We will look at how we can benefit from these investigations as the commission. We do not want to make publications. We will sit down and make a determination on how we incorporate some of them.”
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On Wednesday, controversial Eskom head of generation Matshela Koko is expected to appear before the public enterprise committee inquiry into mismanagement of funds at state-owned enterprises.
Koko has been accused of awarding a lucrative deal to a company linked to his stepdaughter.
In another day of drama at Eskom, the power utility's acting head of group capital, Prish Govender, resigned.
This was hours after the company's former Chief Financial Officer, Anoj Singh, an alleged Gupta associate, resigned.
Singh was on Tuesday accused of lying about who paid for his travels to Dubai when he testified before the parliamentary inquiry into the power utility.
He said he had met Tony Gupta coincidentally at the Oberoi Hotel. Singh also denied that the Guptas paid for his trips despite evidence leader advocate Ntuthuzelo Vanara producing an invoice that (Gupta-owned) Sahara Computers covered his travel costs for the trips to Dubai.
Singh also defended Eskom's decision to reduce the fine of Optimum mine from R2.1 billion to R577 million.
Eskom had issued the fine to Glencore before the Guptas bought it, but after the family purchased the mine, it reduced it.