Still ducking and diving
It would be difficult to find a South African who has not heard of the Gupta family and who does not believe that at the very least, there is cause for alarm over the allegations that the family has looted the state with the help of corrupt politicians.
Ask South Africans whether they would take a job with the Guptas, or whether they would be comfortable with a son or a daughter accepting employment with the Guptas, or accepting their expensive gifts, and the answer would be a definite no.
But Ace Magashule, the newly elected secretary-general of the ANC, thinks that even now – after all we have learned from the Gupta leaks and the State of Capture report, and despite the fact that he occupies a position of considerable influence – that there is no reason for his son to distance himself from the Guptas. Magashule’s son Tshepiso has worked for the Guptas since 2010 and leaked e-mails show that by 2016, he was earning a salary of around R90,000 a month.
Investigative journalists Amabhungane recently wrote how Tshepiso and his brother Thato were put up in the infamous Oberoi Hotel in Dubai for eight days at the expense of the Guptas. Along with President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane, Tshepiso joined the Guptas and their families in 2011 on a three-week holiday to New York and Venice.
While Tshepiso hasn’t hit it as big as Duduzane, who is shareholder with the Guptas in several large enterprises, he has been on to a good thing.
Amabhungane found that in return, he had not been shy through the years to arrange various favours for the family through his father’s office.
Among the biggest favours of all — to which neither Ace nor Tshepiso has been directly linked — was when the Free State provincial government paid R30m for the wedding of the Guptas’ niece, with money meant for a community farming project in Vrede.
A more direct link that illustrates how stealing from the state is stealing from the poor could not be found.
Magashule, who was Free State premier when all of this went down, says he knew nothing about the project and it had nothing to do with him or with his son.
As Zuma has similarly dismissed all conflicts involving himself, his son and the Guptas with the explanation, “they are my friends”, it is not surprising that Magashule also thinks that his son’s relationship with the Guptas does not matter as “everyone is innocent until proven guilty”.
The ANC has much to answer for in providing cover for the likes of Zuma and Magashule. Never once has it told Zuma that his relationship with the Guptas was inappropriate and had brought the governing party into disrepute.
The Integrity Commission, set up to look into and adjudicate on matters of ethics and behaviour, has turned out to be ineffective. It also never made any finding of sanction against Zuma for the Guptas or Nkandla, from which in the end, it was found he had benefited unlawfully.
Unfortunately for the ANC and for the country, this laxity doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon. A proposal at the national conference that the Integrity Commission be given “more teeth” in the ANC constitution — that there should be no option but to appear before it when called and that its findings be binding — was defeated on the conference floor.
It will be tabled again at the ANC’s half-term assessment national general council in two-and-a-half years from now. Until then, the compromised and the corrupt will continue to hide behind the notion that they and their relatives are innocent until proven guilty.
While the ANC will eventually be the big loser in all of this — voters and the public have long ago seen through its hypocritical stance on ethics and honesty — society at large also loses as poor ethical standards continue to poison our political culture.
THE ANC HAS MUCH TO ANSWER FOR IN PROVIDING COVER FOR THE LIKES OF ZUMA AND MAGASHULE