Zondo forces us to put the ANC, not just Zuma, on trial
● It would be a serious mistake to regard former president Jacob Zuma as a lone ranger in the story of the capture of the South African state. While it is commonly accepted that there are many actors — from big business and within the state bureaucracy — who were part of the choir of criminals singing from the Guptas’ hymn sheet, the political analysis of state capture often isolates Zuma in a way that obscures deeper truths.
Part 2 of the state capture commission’s report details the gross interference of Zuma in appointing a group CEO at Transnet when Barbara Hogan was minister of public enterprises. After Maria Ramos had left, the hunt was on for a successor.
The board had preferred, after going through the relevant candidate evaluation processes, Sipho Maseko.
Zuma preferred Siyabonga Gama. The problem, however, as far as the board was concerned, was that Gama had a corruption cloud over his head, with the apparent implication that corrupt business went to the risk advisory company of Gen Siphiwe Nyanda. More directly related to acumen and skill, and rather euphemistically, the board had also concluded, in a colourful insult, that Gama needed “greater cognitive development in order to handle the complexity of the position”.
But the more stunning point that surfaces is that Zuma was not alone in bullying the board and trying to usurp its powers and independence. He acted in concert with others from the ANC. Acting chief justice Raymond Zondo notes the explicit support of cabinet ministers Jeff Radebe and Nyanda for the candidacy of Gama, as well as the support of Gwede Mantashe in his capacity as ANC secretary-general. We also see findings of factional support from within the ANC for Gama, as well as the party’s deployment committee’s agitation that Hogan should defer to Zuma’s wishes.
Gama was also supported by the ANC Youth League, the South African Communist Party and the South African Transport Workers Union. Mantashe, rather embarrassingly, had the audacity to call Gama “black excellence” and argued that he was concerned about racism against Gama. The irony is that no white person was competing with Gama, and it was fellow black candidate Maseko that the board preferred, a judgment made by mostly black people looking at the relevant strengths and weaknesses of Gama and Maseko. Mantashe was pulling a fast one.
This story is a crucial reminder of the political, ethical and legal culpability of the governing ANC as an organisation. Zuma cannot be let off the hook, obviously. The head of state has gigantic constitutional power and a singular duty to safeguard our democracy. Parts 1 and 2 of the state capture report, combined, do however also tell a story of organisational immorality that is inexcusable. We should, as citizens, reject any attempt by the ANC to distinguish the party from the individuals who are named and implicated in the state capture report. The report is revealing the DNA of the ANC and is not simply listing bad apples who acted outside the party’s own rotten core.
The opportunity cost of state capture is almost impossible to describe completely. Transnet, for example, accounted for over 70% of all the monies stolen from the state during the state capture years. That is more than R40bn that could have ensured the developmental state is not only a concept peddled in discussion documents, ANC conference speeches and state position papers. The developmental state required the re
The problem is that we cannot keep on introducing new laws.What we lack, is a state that is filled with competent, ethical people doing their work with deep commitment to constitutionalism
sources that were fleeced from Transnet and Denel.
When feeding schemes collapse in our schools, when children drown in pit latrines, when school transportation arrangements are abruptly halted, it is because those implicated in state capture — from the Gupta family to former ministers Malusi Gigaba and Lynne Brown, Zuma himself, the many pliant boards in state-owned enterprises, corrupt executives and others from the private sector who are their sponsors and groomers — repurposed the state to enable grand theft from the public purse. This is why the gloating by Gigaba on Twitter this week that there are no charges against him is sickening.
The tardiness of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) — in no small part due to it too having been hollowed out during the state capture years — does not mean the state capture report did not reach serious conclusions, based on thick evidential foundations, of malfeasance. We as citizens can and must hold the implicated accountable, regardless of the slow reaction of the NPA.
The problem, sadly, is that we cannot keep on introducing new laws. We also cannot keep on designing new anti-corruption agencies. Our laws, for the most part, are sound. What we lack, however, is a state that is filled with competent, ethical people doing their work with deep commitment to constitutionalism.
No new laws or new law enforcement agencies can save us from the pedestrian leadership of the Cyril Ramaphosa-led ANC. The biggest collective takeaway from the first two instalments of the state capture report is that, while non-state actors such as consulting firms are as big a problem as wayward politicians, we must also come to terms with the more precise problem that is the ANC.