MP Molefe still under cloud
It’s Treasury 1, State Capture 1 in Gordhan vs Gupta-linked man
THE announcement that Brian Molefe, erstwhile chief executive officer of Eskom, would be assuming a position as an MP came in a media statement issued by Parliament’s spokesperson last month.
It confirmed speculation that had been mounting for some time that Molefe would be elevated to the National Assembly as a precursor to being appointed to cabinet, possibly as minister of finance.
That it was done in the days ahead of the all-important Budget was seen by many as a thinly veiled threat to the tenure of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, or his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas.
Just as the Hawks had infamously posed 27 questions to Gordhan about an alleged “rogue unit” at the SA Revenue Service days before the 2016 Budget, so too was this intended to distract him from the finalisation of the Budget.
The charges against Gordhan that followed these questions collapsed in spectacular fashion in October 2016 just after the minister’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement.
The Molefe play came on the back of attacks on Gordhan by his colleagues in the cabinet, such as Lindiwe Zulu and Nomvula Mokanyane, as well as President Jacob Zuma himself.
They accused the Treasury of stalling “radical economic transformation” and preventing their pet projects from being implemented.
In other words, the fiscal prudence and rectitude employed by the Treasury hampers their grubby attempts at state capture of public resources.
It laid bare the divisions in the government, cabinet and the governing party.
The spectacle of four ministers, Zulu, Mokonyane, Bathabile Dlamini and David Mahlobo, remaining glumly and stoically stuck on their behinds while the rest of the National Assembly delivered a rousing and rapturous standing ovation to Team Treasury after Gordhan delivered the Budget speech, captured this divide graphically.
In the face of this fierce onslaught, which included fake news sites and Twitter accounts being employed to tarnish his image, Gordhan and the team at the Treasury stood firm and delivered a Budget that provides some stability and respite for our nation’s finances.
They did so in the face of adverse political and economic headwinds.
He outlined the perspective of inclusive economic growth through social compacts and the imperative of confronting inequality in our society.
Gordhan found the space to deliver some telling counterpunches, questioning the sloganeering of radical economic transformation and the fact that its primary beneficiaries would be the associates of those shouting the slogans.
He spoke of growth and transformation, stating: “We need to transform to grow, we need to grow to transform. Without transformation, growth will reinforce inequality; without growth, transformation will be distorted by patronage.”
He located the thrust of the Budget’s message in the heritage of the ANC, drawing on a policy statement warning of an elite group among the oppressed replacing the racist oppressor, enunciated at the exiled movement’s historic 1969 Morogoro Conference.
This constituted a direct challenge to Zuma and the forces of a racialised transformation trajectory that uses white monopoly capital as a battering ram for the unscrupulous accumulation by a predatory elite.
The irony is that this narrow African nationalism will benefit the Guptas more than most! Treasury 1, State Capture 0. Back to Molefe’s “election” to the National Assembly.
Parliament has effectively refused to make public the letter to the Speaker that is required in terms of the Electoral Act [Schedule 1A, section 23(2)]. Does this letter exist? If it does, who was it from? Why hide it?
I have spent a week asking for this as well as the revised list of candidates from North West province to the National Assembly – to no avail.
This begs the question: on what authority did Parliament proceed to swear Molefe in as an MP? All we know is that the swearing in was done in a discreet, cloak and dagger way, befitting someone with a huge cloud over his head.
It is also apposite that Molefe took his oath of office before the Speaker of the National Assembly, who had been found by the Constitutional Court to have violated the constitution in the “Nkandla” case.
Given her partisan role in Parliament (she is also chairwoman of the ANC and a contender for president of the party), can we have any trust in her?
Unfortunately the constitution does not provide for the Electoral Commission (IEC) to have any role in the amendment of party lists between elections; we are therefore deprived of their oversight and independence in what remains a key part of the electoral process.
Suspicions over the process followed in Molefe becoming an MP will linger.
Let us recall that Molefe featured rather prominently in the Public Protector’s “State of Capture” Report last year, and he tearfully announced his resignation at a press conference during which the “Saxonwold Shebeen” rose to notorious prominence.
He tried to explain his whereabouts in that salubrious neighbourhood by suggesting that he may have been visiting a local watering hole rather than the Gupta compound for which it had hitherto been more famous. He stated that he was resigning as boss of Eskom in the “interests of good corporate governance” and in the public interest.
The Public Protector found that Molefe and Ajay Gupta had spoken 58 times in a short period, while he had also been in Saxonwold 19 times in that same time frame.
It now seems that the rabbit was merely avoiding the headlights and is returning to do his masters’ bidding.
The president’s review of the Public Protector report has effectively kicked it into the long grass and the intensity of the public glare has dimmed.
By the time you read this Molefe may well be the minister of finance or some other key portfolio that provides keys to some of the state’s coffers. Zuma will have fought back. Treasury 1, State Capture 1. What happens next will depend on ordinary South Africans standing up for the constitutional values of open, accountable government.
As Gordhan reminded us, transformation must unite and not divide us. Let us unite to save South Africa. Lawson Naidoo is Executive Secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South
African Constitution (www. casac.org.za) and a member of the Steering Committee of the Save South Africa campaign (www.savesouthafrica.org.za)