Mantashe wants another security upgrade — against Zondo and prosecution
The latest instalment of the state capture report, which implicates senior ANC members, including party chair Gwede Mantashe, former president Jacob Zuma and former minister Nomvula Mokonyane, raises serious ethical and legal questions for the ANC and its leaders. In this week’s edition, the commission chair, acting chief justice Raymond Zondo, referred Mantashe for investigation for suspected corruption over the installation of security upgrades at his homes. The installations, for which Mantashe has not been charged, were arranged and financed by Bosasa, a company implicated in corrupt dealings with government entities.
Zondo recommended that Zuma be investigated for possible corruption for “accepting gratuities” from Bosasa. And he referred Mokonyane and other ANC officials who received freebies from Bosasa for investigation, with a view to possible prosecution.
Mantashe, a former secretary-general of the ANC, wasted no time in announcing that he would be taking the commission’s findings on judicial review.
Mantashe is constitutionally entitled to resort to the courts to address grievances he may have about Zondo’s findings. It is not improbable that he might find a sympathetic ear in the courts. But even if that were to happen, it would not remove the public perception of ANC leaders using their positions to secure unearned benefits. He did, after all, admit to receiving the security upgrades for free.
This legalistic approach, of being innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law, ignores a fundamental requirement of good leadership — to conduct oneself according to the highest ethical standards. It is about the example one sets for the society one leads.
As Zondo noted in his report, it was disingenuous for Mantashe to underplay the power of the office of the secretary-general of the ANC, which he occupied at the time. The post is one of the most powerful in the governing party — the secretary-general is key in deciding the deployment of party members to important government positions, where critical decisions are made, including on procurement.
Mantashe dismissed Zondo’s findings against him as based on “assumptions”.
The commission was established by the ANC government, after the recommendations of former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report into state capture. The ANC repeatedly urged its members to co-operate with the commission, and to appear before it when required.
The commission’s findings on Mantashe, Mokonyane and the ANC itself cannot, therefore, be dismissed as idle rumour or the machinations of political enemies.
It is highly likely that, beyond remaining in office as he seems determined to do, Mantashe will be returned to high office at the ANC’s elective conference in December.
All of this raises a question in the minds of South Africans: are certain people untouchable in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s crusade against corruption, their fates determined by their proximity to the president?
Zondo’s findings pose tough questions for the ANC. For a party that wants to be regarded as “the leader of society”, the commission report suggests that the ANC, by flirting with the corrupt, is leading society to perdition rather than progress.
The root of the entire state capture saga lies in the ANC’s insatiable demand for money to run its affairs, and in many of its leaders’ use of their influence to gain unearned financial and material benefits. It is a toxic cocktail that has corroded the moral fibre not only of the ANC, but of the government and society in general.
Remedying the corruption scourge consuming our country will require leaders and their organisations to be beyond reproach — and to be seen to be so. Are the ANC and its leaders able to meet that standard?
Are certain people untouchable in Ramaphosa’s crusade against corruption?