Daily Dispatch

ANC authority in government

THE ANC of today has a curious relationship with God, habitually referring to aspects of Christianity while simultaneously condoning behaviour that is blatantly wicked.

This weekend ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe urged mourners at the funeral of premier Phumulo Masualle’s mother, Dineo, to pray for leaders who would drag the ANC out of the mud.

Our intention here is not to impugn in any way the sincerity of the ANC’s founding Christian fathers or individual believers in the organisation today, but it is puzzling that the ANC leadership exhorts its Christian members to plead for divine intervention when the very same leadership is disinclined to exercise its own authority to restore righteous government.

For instance, a perfect opportunity presents itself in the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma. How much easier will it have to get for the ANC to stand up for truth, honesty and clean government?

Yet Mantashe has commanded ANC MPs to behave like automatons, falling into line behind a man who should long ago have had his day in court.

The former Zuma disciple Julius Malema can shout as much as he likes about 60 ANC MPs voting against Zuma. The more likely approach is that of Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who says, come the day she will “read the mood of the ANC” and take her cue from there.

So much for righteous principle. Threatened ANC MP Makhosi Khoza may again be the only ANC MP courageous enough to stand up against treasonous corruption.

Another gross abuse of state that the ANC should be shouting out against – and stopping – is the payment of bonuses at Eskom.

In the past two weeks the asset-stripped bankrupted state owned entity paid out R4.2billion in bonuses, including a hefty one to a man so deeply buried in the mud of corruption that his eyeballs are barely visible, the job-hopping Gupta factotum, Brian Molefe. These payments are, of course, nothing but ripping the last bits of flesh from the SOE’s carcass. So where’s the ANC outrage?

Another site of attempted plunder – one on which the ANC is also deafeningly silent – is the mines. Mosebenzi Zwane, the so-called Minister of Zupta Affairs, is laying siege to the backbone of South Africa’s premier industry in a way that is brazen and illegal.

After his secretive third iteration of the mining charter was temporarily halted by court action, he last week moved to freeze the allocation of mining rights, an illegal act of brinkmanship that could collapse the industry. Foreign investment is ever more tremulous, thousands of jobs could be in jeopardy, and with that the possibility of exploiting mineral resources to their full potential for the benefit of the nation.

All of this to secure the title deeds of the country’s mines for a greedy cartel.

And the response of the ANC? Zip. Nyet. Nada. Zero. Instead proposals are being made to give full amnesty to a man who has made a human sacrifice of this nation.

If Mantashe wants the church to pray to God on behalf of the ANC and its government, he needs to understand the governmental paradigm of Christianity. In it the government of a country is a system of stewardship in which people have the responsibility to exercise authority.

In this case the ones with authority are the ANC representatives and leaders themselves.

If Mantashe wants to appeal to the church to pray for anything, he might try mercy.