Nene was a brave exception, but also very much the rule

It is impossible to know while writing this what President Cyril Ramaphosa will do about his finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene. It is a difficult decision not least for practical reasons – who will replace him? - but also because the moral questions have become so distorted by politics and self-interest that it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

Some people think they must defend Nene as it is the EFF and the Zuma bots that are engineering his downfall. Others – particularly in business – want to save Nene out of self-interest because they are weary of the constant instability. The Treasury too dreads the disruption. Still others want him to survive because if he must fall, then what about the rest of them who did far worse?

People are divided not over the principle but over the politics of it. It is only among the political opposition that it is an easy choice. Fortunately for them, politics and principle coincide in this instance.

Whether Nene stays or goes, his case is not going to be the only one on which Ramaphosa (and the rest of us) are going to have a difficult time delivering moral judgment. There will be many more because just as much as Nene was an exception, in some very important instances to how ministers in the Zuma cabinet behaved, he was very much the rule.

We will have to sort through their degrees of badness. As a deputy minister and even as finance minister he met with the president’s friends, the Guptas, probably because, like most people, he couldn’t say no. He later lied that he had done so and continued to fail to disclose it after coming back to government.

Curiously, Nene has known for several months – ever since the EFF threatened publicly to expose him – that he was at risk. He failed to do anything about it, though, even dismissing direct questions to his office. Perhaps he thought he could negotiate with Floyd Shivambu to keep him quiet? time The of most’questionable Nene s career has been at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which then was a R1.6-trillion fund.

Among the matters we know he discussed with the Guptas was their desire to acquire a stake in Independent Newspapers, for which another politically connected businessman, Iqbal Survé, was also in the running.

Nene said in his testimony to the Zondo commission that it was the Guptas who raised the Independent Newspapers matter with him and asked for nothing in return. At the time, in political circles it was strongly believed that Nene had gone in to bat for the Guptas at the PIC, causing much anger among those who wanted Surve to acquire the group for the same reasons that the Guptas did: an ANC-friendly newspaper was both a good business and political bet.

But here s the thing with the PIC and’the way it works. Yes, it does have investment committees at board and executive level. Decisions that involve investments greater than a certain threshold must go to the board investment committee, while smaller amounts are delegated to management to decide. Both investment committees must have a quorum to sit, are run according to rules, include declarations of interest and sittings are minuted. Investments are subject to risk assessment and due diligence.

There is, though, always subjectivity in choosing one deal over another. This is especially so in the unlisted space and even more so where a transformation agenda is part of the merits of the proposal. In these cases returns alone are not the determining factor and political influence is key.

THE MOST QUESTIONABLE TIME OF NENE’S CAREER HAS BEEN HIS TIME AT THE PUBLIC INVESTMENT CORPORATION

In the PIC itself, in political circles, black business circles and especially among black asset managers, it is an open secret that deals and participants in deals are chosen on the basis of political considerations.

This partly explains some of the PIC’s extremely odd deals: the wildly overvalued investment in Survé’s technology group Ayo in 2017; and the investment in Erin Energy years ago, which must now be written off.

The deal in which Nene’s son Siyabonga was involved – and for which his direct benefit has not been successfully demonstrated – to buy an oil refinery in Mozambique is another strange-looking one. While Nene says he did not know of his son’s involvement until after the fact and wouldn’t have looked at it as board chair, the real question is why the PIC chose to look at such an obscure and risky investment in the first place.

We know that when it came to the big three deals former president Jacob Zuma wanted done the nuclear deal; the SAA leasing deal with Airbus; and the bid by PetroSA to buy the Malaysian stake in Engen Nene stood firm. Behind him was a Treasury management that would have quit had he not.

It allowed him to become an accidental hero.

● Paton is writer at large.