Due process, grinding slowly, will be exceedingly fine

Iknow I might be beginning to sound like a stuck record, but whatever the noise and the mayhem of living in SA today — the lousy property and stock markets, the screeching hatred spitting out of our TVs or the inevitable road death toll this Christmas — things get slightly better, not worse, every day. Cheerful things happen all the time. Former president Jacob Zuma now has to find at least R16m to pay for all the legal costs he incurred protecting himself while head of state. That’s a lot, even if you think he has wealthy friends. It took a long time to find the money to pay his small R7m share of the Nkandla costs and even then it was from a crooked bank. Where does R16m come from, let alone a possible R32m?

He could sell Nkandla, but there’s no title and it’ll probably be attached by the state at some stage anyway.

Tom Moyane is no more. He lost his bid for reinstatement as the (suspended) head of the South African Revenue Service and the court gave President Cyril Ramaphosa the go-ahead to replace him.

And we have a new head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Shamila Batohi, starting in February. She beat a tough prosecutor, Andrea Johnson, to the job but Ramaphosa is in the process of clearing two deputies out of the way, so Batohi can replace one with Johnson if she wants to. Glynnis Breytenbach has publicly said she will go back to the NPA if Batohi invites her.

It would be insane not to, and Ramaphosa’s strategy going forward will be to leave the fate of his enemies inside and outside the ANC to the NPA and the Hawks. He has better things to do. Already Batohi has said she is going to ask Ramaphosa for permission to create an informal network of police and prosecutors that closely resembles the old Scorpions to attack and prosecute corruption.

Just as land expropriation without compensation was a resolution at the ANC conference that narrowly elected Ramaphosa last year, so was stepping up the fight against corruption. Ramaphosa is making progress on both and the corrupt are going to feel a lot worse than landowners when he finally discharges the instructions the party gave him exactly a year ago.

Ramaphosa gave a two-hour interview to Radio 702 last week and, with hindsight, probably should not have. He doesn’t interview well. He didn’t do well with Jane Dutton on eNCA, he didn’t do well on a short Bloomberg TV interview in New York a few months ago (when he said there were no farm murders) and he didn’t do well until right at the end with Xolani Gwala on 702.

He needs media training. He fumbles too many questions. He managed, needlessly, to take a swipe at all whites while ignoring disruption and threatening elsewhere in the political spectrum, while at the same time trying to establish his credentials as a unifier and nation builder.

But then someone called and asked the question on everyone’s lips — why oh why doesn’t anybody ever go to jail for all the crime and corruption? His answer was suddenly both strong and relaxed.

I wasn’t writing it down but “Just watch,” he seemed to say. Due process is everything. It may be slow but it moves. It has taken hold of Zuma and his son. It has crushed Moyane. All in good time, he implied, and the forces of the agencies he is rescuing from state capture will start doing their jobs.

I buy this. I cannot see the ANC getting rid of Ramaphosa. He hasn’t done anything obviously “wrong” in ANC terms, like forgetting to fill in a form or disrespecting the head of the ANC Women’s League.

Some of that balancing act can be infuriating or at least funny. Bathabile Dlamini, he said, was “raising the bar” over at the women’s ministry.

But wait until Moyane gets arrested and tried, until Julius Malema, Floyd Shivambu and the ANC’s Danny Msiza and a host of others implicated in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank are arrested and tried. Wait until Ace Magashule, Supra Mahumapelo and perhaps even DD Mabuza and Malusi Gigaba and, yes, Bathabile, are arrested and tried for corruption. Wait until the Gupta brothers are extradited and tried. Wait until the whole slimy dough of corruption is unearthed and put on display before disappearing into jail cells around the country. Add Markus Jooste, Brian Molefe and Ben Ngubane to this list.

Ramaphosa isn’t going to stop it. Due process, you understand? Leave it to the authorities. His bigger job is to rescue us from bankruptcy.