Bongo’s poisoned chalice
ANALYSIS: P11
AMONTH ago South Africans knew very little about Bongani Bongo. The Mpumalanga advocate was an ANC MP who had been sitting on the back benches of parliament since 2014.
He became vaguely noticeable last year when he was part of the parliamentary committee that chose Busisiwe Mkhwebane to be our public protector.
Then three weeks ago President Jacob Zuma appointed him our state security minister, placing him in charge of our national intelligence machinery and thus making him one of the most powerful men in this country. It was odd, but typical Zuma. Apart from being a member of some portfolio committees, there is nothing in Bongo’s CV to suggest he was fit to become South Africa’s spy boss. To some who knew him, the idea was ludicrous.
Their reaction to his appointment was perhaps perfectly summed up by a Mpumalanga ANC leader who, upon hearing the news, burst out laughing and told News24: “Yeah, neh, things happen in South Africa.”
EFF leader Julius Malema was less candid: “Bongo is a nobody. He is just a little young man who knows little about himself.”
Bongo’s own reaction to his appointment was telling.
“I feel lifted up that the president could see some capacity from my side,” he said.
Fast forward to last Sunday.
It emerged – no doubt conveniently timed – that Bongo was in fact under investigation by the Hawks for his involvement in alleged dodgy land deals that happened when he was a legal adviser in the Mpumalanga government years before.
The evidence against him, contained in an internal police memo, appears strong.
There are many questions to ask here.
The most obvious being how on earth Bongo got the security clearance required for someone in his position, when he is in fact under criminal investigation.
I believe the answer to this is simple: what Zuma wants, Zuma gets.
Bongo’s appointment must be seen in the context of a bigger project at play. Central to its success is the placement of weak and potentially compromised individuals indebted to the president to run powerful state organs for the sole purpose of serving the political and financial interests of his rogue enterprise.
By now you may have read – or at least heard of – journalist Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers.
It is one of the most important books written in our democratic era, regardless of where you stand on its content.
It forces us, I hope, to go beyond debating political theories and to confront the damage to our public institutions when politics are allowed to delegitimise the principle of accountability.
Of course Pauw’s critics have argued that the book must be seen in the context of a South African publishing trend that seeks to push a particular narrative prior to ANC elective conferences or to manipulate public sentiment against the ANC in the run-up to general elections. This theory may well be correct. I don’t know. Frankly, I do not care. For me, it is beside the point. If anything this theory undermines the agency of citizens to formulate views about the state of our nation.
What I care about is what Pauw claims happened at institutions such as SARS and the State Security Agency which are pivotal to the functioning of our democracy and the stability of our country.
This is why as troubling as it may be, I am also intrigued by the government’s legal threat against the book.
Last week the State Security Agency sent a cease and desist letter to Pauw and NB Publishers, claiming that parts of the book were inaccurate and violated the Intelligence Services Act.
It took them five days (from the release date) to make that move. It was a futile exercise. The horse had bolted. Interestingly, they have not said which parts are inaccurate.
In media interviews Bongo has claimed that some of the information in the book is classified.
And then at some point he said this: “Certain information in the book is info that private citizens, when they have it, they need to protect it because it’s information of the state [sic].” Don’t laugh. Apart from being reminiscent of the apartheid government tactics, going ahead with the legal challenge against Pauw may just be a nightmare for Bongo and his team.
For example, some of the more shocking allegations in the book stem from internal documents and internal source information which claims that hundreds of millions of rand were squandered in the SSA via a seemingly useless national security project.
The shopping bonanza by agents – at the height of the 2009 global recession – was jaw-dropping.
Houses, farms, spying equipment and lots and lots of luxury cars were bought.
They bought so many cars that many of them stood idle in a warehouse for months and even years.
The unit’s expenditure was regarded as confidential information and therefore could not be fully accounted for.
Here’s Bongo challenge. To prove that by publishing this information Pauw broke the law or even endangered national security, the SSA would have to have these allegations ventilated in court.
That may open a whole can of worms for the agency and its bosses.
Similarly, to legally go after Pauw for publishing Zuma’s tax woes, SARS may need to prove the veracity of Pauw’s claims about the president’s tax records. They won’t. This book, and many others written about Zuma’s legacy and those who benefit from it, exposes the daring nature of corrupt power.
It exposes its machinations. Above all, it warns us of the dangerous place we may descend into if we fail to hold government to account.