It’s still night over at the new-dawn ANC
The new dawn is quickly becoming a delayed dawn as those implicated in state capture and corruption, from inside and outside the state and the ANC, push back. They are determinedly casting about for an escape route from the reckoning that is surely on the way as the chess pieces on the political board shift.
So far, not a single individual has been truly held accountable for their actions, apart from relinquishing posts that enabled the malfeasance that ran rampant across the government and state-owned entities for the past near-decade. There has not been a single conviction.
This has emboldened the implicated and their response has been twofold — fight or flight, in the arrogance of knowing that a true reckoning remains a distant, or potentially nonexistent, reality.
Eskom’s embattled chief financial officer, Anoj Singh, resigned in January, a day before he was due to appear before the parliamentary inquiry into state capture, and has yet to adequately answer to the allegations against him. Singh faces allegations of corruption and state capture not only at Eskom but also at Transnet, where he had been chief financial officer as well.
In February, Matshela Koko resigned before the disciplinary inquiry against him was to begin, and he did so without admitting guilt following allegations that he had awarded contracts to a company linked to his stepdaughter.
Also in February, South African Revenue Service (SARS) head of business and individual taxes, Jonas Makwakwa, resigned, days before his boss, commissioner Tom Moyane, was suspended from his post by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
A first suspension was in reality a year-long paid holiday for Makwakwa, during which he allegedly continued to interfere in taxpayer matters.
This came two months after he was cleared of charges following a sham investigation into allegations contained in a Financial Intelligence Centre report on suspicious and unusual transactions in his personal bank account and that of his partner, also a SARS employee, to the tune of R1.2m.
Moyane’s response has been a fightback, which mirrored his response to allegations that he was running SARS into the ground during his tenure. He complains of victimisation at every step, which he hopes will induce a mass public pity party, while he rather clumsily sidesteps the real allegations of wrongdoing put to him.
Another of his henchmen, Yegan Mundie, resigned this week, also before an investigation into his conduct could be concluded. Mundie ran a unit that targeted auditors and officials inside SARS who were working on sensitive investigations in the tobacco industry and organised crime.
There is a strong link between what Mundie did at SARS and disclosures before the commission of inquiry into governance and administration at the tax agency: under Moyane, instructions were issued for inspections at cigarette factories to be halted.
Further testimony from Treasury official Cecil Morden described the effect of that move on SA’s overall ability to collect tax.
Mundie’s unit, sanctioned by Moyane, in effect mirrored that of the “rogue unit” that was alleged to have purged former SARS officials, which was used to justify a wholesale overhaul of the institution by Moyane, with dire consequences for its ability to fulfil its mandate.
For his part, Makwakwa is alleged to be trying to gag and sue witnesses who have appeared before the inquiry headed by retired judge Robert Nugent, some of whom have made startling allegations. These include that he took a particular interest in the VIP taxpayer unit and one client in particular, whose name could not be made public due to taxpayer confidentiality. He apparently asked the executive overseeing the unit, Makungu Mthebule, to write off capital and interest when it came to certain individuals. She refused.
Makwakwa is also taking SARS to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, alleging constructive dismissal.
Then we have Transnet’s Seth Radebe and Siyabonga Gama who have, along with Moyane, found allies in the EFF. After the party’s now welldocumented beef with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, during which it released a letter raging against Gordhan’s “reign of terror”, the ANC has not moved to defend one of its own, either in Parliament or from Luthuli House. Telling.
With a delay in the Constitutional Court’s judgment on the status of national director of public prosecutions Shaun Abrahams, and after Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo asked for an extension of the initial 180-day period set down for the judicial inquiry into state capture, the great reckoning is being pushed out ever further.
It is clear that the ANC’s rhetoric about clean governance and upholding the rule of law, and Ramaphosa’s latest line on recouping the billions that have been siphoned from the state, is just that: rhetoric.
A FIRST SUSPENSION WAS IN REALITY A YEAR-LONG PAID HOLIDAY FOR MAKWAKWA DURING WHICH HE ALLEGEDLY CONTINUED TO INTERFERE