SHAMELESS

Those found with their hands in the public kitty must feel enough shame to resign

Afew days ago, something we rarely see in our body politic unfolded in the small, nondescript Mpumalanga town of Secunda. A mayor you may not have heard of, Thandi Ngxonono, who was, until this week, in charge of the Govan Mbeki municipality, resigned — almost unnoticed. Why?

Other than the fact that she has done nothing amazing, she is, like many, implicated in corruption and suffers the general inability to do things right. Nothing extraordinary!

There is also nothing amazing about this back-ofbeyond municipality. It is like many where millions of rands, without explanation, just disappear. Then the auditor-general issues a damning letter, officials shrug it off, life returns to normal and the poor continue to live ignominious lives without service from those who ought to be “servants of the people”. It is a way of life in small-town municipalities.

Yet, when a forensic report implicating Ngxonono and others in corruption was released, she surprisingly resigned. She is still to be put through a disciplinary process. Politicians across the board in our country don’t do this. They don’t step away from power. They don’t step away from the till.

Remember how the DA had to have several meetings with “Sex in the City” mayor Stevens Mokgalapa of Tshwane before he fell on his sword?

To be clear, Ngxonono’s resignation doesn’t make her a hero. She shouldn’t be facing corruption claims in the first place. She must still clear her name and, if she fails, must face the full might of the law.

This nexus, between guilt and shame, is one we don’t traverse properly as a country. Our politics is clothed in shamelessness.

Not long ago, senior politicians were exposed for having received payments from the discredited business owner Edwin Sodi. This newspaper traced the cobweb, showing who is who in Sodi’s zoo. Without shame, these people, unlike Ngxonono, are sitting tight while they wait for their guilt to be

Perhaps Zuma is a bad example. For he has no discernable scruples

pronounced on.

Patricia de Lille, even in the face of evidence that she meddled in tenders in the public works department, is shamelessly holding on to office, pretending she remains the noble anti-corruption fighter she was in the ’90s. If her conscience fails her, President Cyril Ramaphosa must fire her. Former intelligence minister Bongani Bongo appeared in court this week for corruption but will, no doubt, not be stepping down from his position in parliament.

Gail Weiss of the George Washington University, in a paper titled “The shame of shamelessness”, argues that feelings of shame are important in living a moral life. But this is only if such shamefulness is warranted, and if the shame is directly attributed to the subject’s own action. There can be no doubt that the conditions above prevail in the shamelessness that is a part of our political firmament. Take a look, too, at the shameful behaviour of our consul-general in Los Angeles, Thandile Sunduza, who behaves more like a Hollywood-star-wannabe than someone serving our interests.

In this respect, the statement issued this week by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, who chairs the state capture commission of inquiry, is noteworthy. He’s had to explain that many years ago he fathered a child with the sister of a woman who was later to become a wife of former president Jacob Zuma.

At the time, in the ’90s, Zuma was not even in the picture. Yet, this forced familial connection is the reason Zuma wants to avoid appearing before the commission. But Zuma didn’t think much, if he thought at all, about the purported conflict of interest when he appointed Zondo as deputy chief justice and later as chair of the commission.

Perhaps Zuma is a bad example. For he has no discernable scruples.

One of Zuma’s sons, Duduzane, told us this week about his Gupta uncles: “I don’t regret doing business with them. I don’t regret knowing them. I have learnt a lot from them.”

Therein lies the anaesthesia of shamelessness. There is a body of information about how the Guptas were wrecking balls, destroying not just the careers of honest civil servants but also our country’s fiscus. And, without shame, Duduzane tells us he has no regrets about his association with the source of our national pain — televised daily through the commission his father is running away from. And he has the temerity to tell us that one day he plans, through the ANC, to become our leader.

In our duplicitous politics, it is a significant thing that Ngxonono has stepped down. Far from being a hero, she is an example of what must follow.