Do what needs to be done

THE hackneyed phrase “when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers” is currently playing itself out in the country’s body politic. But is it even political, as detractors of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane would want us believe?

Or is her only undoing the fact that she has dared touch The Untouchable – the Prime Minister of South Africa, as Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan is unflatteringly called?

The integrity of President Cyril Ramaphosa is the top-most blade of the grass that’s being trampled underfoot while this spat ensues.

He is in the invidious position

– a Catch 22 situation – of having to implement the binding recommendations of the public protector and sanctioning one of arguably the sharpest arrows in his quiver of Cabinet.

But sometimes – and one doesn’t need the wisdom of Solomon to appreciate this logic – the best way out of a spot of bother is to do the right thing.

The right thing at the moment seems to lie in following the letter of the law.

For the New Dawn to emerge out of this skirmish with its probity intact, President Ramaphosa needs to be seen taking charge. Any amount of equivocation is a blot on his white sheet of incorruptibility.

Of course, Gordhan is within his rights to take Mkhwebane’s findings on review but a simple reading of the facts shows that the recommendations are not suspended while the matter is taken through the court process.

Mkhwebane has said her say and the ball is now in the president’s court.

Kicking the can further down the road is not an option open to him. He needs to act, and now.

While the commissions of inquiry have proved a boon for the country’s ills, SA Inc cannot be seen to be run by the eminent likes of Zondo, Nugent, Mogoro et al, despite their honourable pedigree.

Gordhan has erred and for that he deserves a presidential sanction. Mkhwebane has not covered herself in glory, either. But it will be foolhardy to run roughshod over the work of her office simply because of shoddiness in the Bankorp-ciex report and South African Reserve Bank mandate fiasco.

It will be tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Phakama, Ramaphosa. Lead the way.