There is no doubt: bad vibes Mkhize must go

Health minister Zweli Mkhize’s convoluted and implausible version of the events and circumstances in which his department came to gift a R150m communications contract to a company run by his close associates is so unlikely that it borders on the absurd. This is especially so given the disclosure we make today that the minister signed off on the contracts, a practice apparently followed only in his department and not in others where the executive authority is quite correctly kept at arm’s length from administrative procedures — and contracts.

What, one may legitimately ask, was the point of the minister signing off on the contract if he was not fully aware of what he had before him? It seems far more likely that he knew precisely what he was agreeing to when his department dispensed this latest offering of taxpayer largesse to Digital Vibes. Mkhize now insists that the “comrades” who worked for his ANC Unity campaign ahead of the party’s Nasrec conference in 2017, and who were the prime beneficiaries of the department of health contract, are not his friends. And, he insists, neither he nor his family benefited.

The slimmest chance that it might be true disintegrated when it emerged later this week that Digital Vibes had paid for repair work at a property owned by Mkhize’s family trust in Johannesburg. In May last year, Digital Vibes handed a cool R300,000 payment to a company of which Mkhize’s son Dedani is the only director.

The latest disclosure makes a mockery of Mkhize’s attempts to portray himself as the one who deserves credit for having backed a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe of the matter.

The cloud of scandal over the minister cannot be wished away by throwing underlings under the bus, which seems to be where this is headed. It may help Mkhize escape censure, but it is a body blow to SA’s efforts to combat Covid-19. The pandemic is now in its third wave, with people dying as the government writes itself another grim chapter in its mediocre handling of the virus.

Ironically, for the fortune paid for “communications”, SA’s war on Covid has proceeded in something not entirely unrelated to secrecy.

In the same week that Mkhize treated South Africans to his Alice in Wonderland version of what went down in the department, former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba was testifying at the Zondo commission. Just as Mkhize sought to airbrush out of his past certain inconvenient truths about the Digital Vibes contract, so too did Gigaba seek to downplay his relationship with the Guptas. Gigaba had the unlikely story that he had no inkling of the business ties or history of a man he attempted to have installed as chairman of the board of Transnet. He wasn’t even curious about it, he said.

Which legitimately raises the question: what, precisely, is the difference between the era of state capture and the so-called New Dawn we are meant to be living in under President Cyril Ramaphosa? In both instances, ministers would have us believe they know almost nothing about what goes on in their departments.

Ramaphosa has said he wants the SIU to do its job before taking action, if any, against Mkhize. Whether Mkhize can survive such an obvious case of misgovernance and dereliction in exercising diligent oversight remains to be seen. Will unity and peace in the ANC again trump the national interest? Ramaphosa, one imagines, would want to avoid the perception that he is happy for ministers to preside over a free-for-all, providing they stay loyal to his cause. Looting, yes, but no state capture, please?

Whatever the case, the Mkhize scandal is a challenge for Ramaphosa’s cleanup drive. There is no doubt Mkhize must go. Any ambition he had of one day becoming president must be shelved. The argument that Ramaphosa’s hands are tied because of fears of ANC disunity can only go so far. At some point, SA’s legitimate interests must come first.

What is the difference between state capture and the so-called New Dawn?