The mystery of the great Zuma cock-up
ANYONE who says they know what’s going on in the ANC and its president’s relationship with the Gupta family is lying.
It is a blur in which the Hawks are investigating both Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Guptas; Jacob Zuma may or may not form part of the “court” that hears the Guptas explain themselves and other evidence brought to ANC secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe’s office by concerned members; and a stealthy scheme is afoot to damage Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas following his revelation that the Guptas tried to induce him to take the job of finance minister.
I’ve seen a copy of an e-mailed “open letter” from an ANC member in London, where both the Guptas’ public relations advisers, Bell Pottinger, and their lawyers are based. It raises an old Jonas skeleton in which he and others were investigated for fraud in the Eastern Cape and suggests that he was involved in the theft of funds for Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
What it doesn’t say is that the investigation was thrown out by a court partly because none of the people supposedly under investigation was ever interviewed. When you consider that the recent KPMG report into a so-called “rogue spy unit” at the South African Revenue Service also failed to interview any of the unit’s members, it tells you this kind of “investigation” is common in factions of the ANC.
It is rough politics by any standard, reminiscent of an almost mythical story about former US president Lyndon Johnson, who, during one of his campaigns in Texas, told an aide to spread a rumour that his opponent “f**ks pigs”.
“Lyndon,” said the aide, “we can’t get away with calling him a pig f**ker.”
“I know,” said Johnson, “but let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”
I’m still dumbfounded that an operator as wily as Zuma could have so cocked things up as to find himself, and an undoubtedly adored son, trapped in this spreading scandal, particularly after slipping out of the fraud charges that he and Schabir Shaik faced all those years ago.
And I want to be charitable. Neither the Guptas nor Zuma, surely, could have imagined or designed their relationship reaching such an explosive point. But it has, so much so that a group of seriously senior former Umkhonto weSizwe leaders have called for his head.
Bemoaning the string of scandals surrounding Zuma and the Guptas, the Hawks’ attack on Gordhan, “the devaluing of the critical institution of parliament, the erosion of trust within the various arms of the state [and] the unprecedented rise of patronage and cronyism”, they said: “We are of the view that, for the sake of the ANC and the country, a dignified exit should be negotiated with Comrade J Zuma.”
I agree that it would be worth paying almost any price to see him leave office. But it is too late. As I say, Zuma is trapped. His son Duduzane would have to go down with the Guptas, who have made him a business partner, not merely an employee, in their mining business, thus uniting the two families financially.
He will be a co-signatory to a deal with Glencore to buy the Optimum coal mine that supplies one of Eskom’s power stations for R2.1billion. If the deal is conventional and fails, they could face stiff penalties to Glencore. The Guptas never really had to capture the state; they merely had to capture the president, who seems to have walked straight into it.
Perhaps it isn’t conventional. Perhaps Glencore was promised something else in return, which might explain why their rumoured pick as minerals minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, went with the Guptas to Switzerland to meet Glencore last year.
It would be hard now for the Guptas, embroiled in scandal, to raise the funds commercially. What bank would lend them money? Some suggest it would come from the state’s pension fund manager, the Public Investment Corporation. So far, it has denied any part in the deal. But the deputy finance minister, currently Jonas, chairs the PIC board and it is widely believed Zuma wants to replace him with an ally, Sfiso Buthelezi, whom he has quietly made an MP. But even as PIC chair, Buthelezi would still need a compliant executive to fund Optimum.
That would probably mean having to get rid of Dan Matjila, the CEO and an enormously powerful and proud figure. So the hole the president is in would get deeper. And deeper.