In a few vignettes from his fascinating new book, former health ombudsman professor Malegapuru Makgoba, who has more accolades to his name than would fit on this page, gives some insights into ministers he has worked with.
SIBUSISO BENGU, WISE MAN AND MENTOR
Professor Sibusiso Bengu (the minister of education from 1994 to 1999) set up the National Commission on Higher Education to lay the foundations for the transformation of higher education in the new democratic South Africa; he also set up the commission led by advocate Johann Gautschi to investigate the instability and thuggery that engulfed the University of Durban Westville.
I recall travelling with Bengu to Mbilwi High School in Venda to understand how a rural school managed to achieve consistently excellent matric results with such meagre resources.
Bengu supported me during the Wits University saga and later joined the council of the University of KwaZulu-Natal when I became vice-chancellor. He became the council representative on the senate. He was a father figure, a mentor and a fountain of wisdom in education.
NKOSAZANA DLAMINI-ZUMA, IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is well trained and very knowledgeable in health sciences, and she is difficult to bluff. She was just the right person in the right place and at the right time to become the first minister of health in South Africa (1994-1999).
She appointed me as chair of the Medical Research Council (MRC) board in December 1994 and later, in 1998, concurred with the MRC board at my appointment as president of the MRC. The seeds for the transformation of the MRC, the national HIV/Aids strategy and the establishment of the HIV vaccine programme, the South African Vaccine Initiative, all took place under her leadership … Nkosazana’s transfer from health to foreign affairs (and her subsequent replacement by Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang), while important for her own personal political growth and development, was a grave political mistake that heralded severe decline within the leadership and strategic direction of the national health department. The consequences of this decision have cost the country dearly.
She was the second ANC member I met in London in late 1979, the first being Max Sirenya, who picked me up from London’s Paddington Station to go to meet Nkosazana. I had full trust in her, and I informally asked her during our first meeting, how best I could serve the struggle now that I was out of the country.
In her own gentle and nonchalant way and without blinking, she advised: ‘It would best to serve by not joining the ANC.’ She then explained further. ‘You would not be banned; you would be able to move freely and may carry messages when necessary for comrades and the movement’. She taught me that it was more important to serve the cause of the struggle rather than be beholden to a ‘liberation movement’.
KADER ASMAL,
THE PINK PUFFER
During the Mbeki era, second administration, I served Abdul Kader Asmal, the second minister of education (from 1999-2004). I first encountered him through my writings and during the Wits saga. His terse comment on the debacle was typical Kader: “Do these bastards have nothing to do?”
His terse disparagement of the Wits Gang of 13 endeared him to me. As a brilliant lawyer, a scholar and a dedicated activist, he understood the deeper meaning and the implications of this saga. He could read the real story behind the so-called liberal façade, the false veneer …
Asmal was a minister of action and was impatient in personality. He did not suffer fools gladly. He was a chain smoker, who became a “pink puffer” (a form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) later; he also loved his Jameson whiskey. He was vehemently opposed to Mbeki’s Aids denial stance but refused to resign from the cabinet.
NALEDI PANDOR,
DIPLOMAT EXTRAORDINAIRE
Under Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor, the third minister of education and an educationist, I led the merger of the universities of Natal and Durban Westville to create UKZN … Pandor provided much-needed guidance, support and leadership. Most importantly, she was “there for me” as vice-chancellor and described me as “a pioneer in the field”. An article by Brett Horner in the Sunday Times of April 3 2003, titled “Shepherding education into the new era”, had described me as “a merger domo”.
Pandor was a knowledgeable and passionate educationist, very efficient and she “took people along”. She was another effective co-ordinator in leadership style. She was always calm under pressure and looked for and saw the good in people. She provided the necessary financial resources to ensure the merger was given the necessary support and was successful.
PHUMZILE MLAMBO-NGCUKA, HUMBLE AND EFFECTIVE
I then served with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the minister of minerals & energy, as chair of the National Nuclear Regulator (2000-2002). This position brought me into contact with Eskom for the first time.
It has a nuclear power station at Koeberg which I visited with the minister.
We spent a day there. She was humble, effective and a co-ordinator in leadership style.
MANTO TSHABALALA-MSIMANG, NO SCIENCE, MUCH FEAR
Mantombazana Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang (October 1999 to December 2009) was minister of health during the infamous period of Aids denial and Virodene clinical trial period. This was at the height of the political meddling into the affairs of the MRC (1999-2008). She had no clear leadership style preference that I could discern. She led through intimidation and instilling fear but was a good bureaucrat follower of instructions.
She was popularly known as the minister of garlic and beetroot and Dr Beetroot. She promoted the use of ubhejane (a traditional herb), garlic, beetroot and lemon juice for the treatment of Aids.
She had no single shred of scientific evidence for her view but was reluctant to promote antiretrovirals, often highlighting their toxicity.
When I first met her, after her appointment as minister, she was concerned and fearful that her husband, Mendi Msimang (former ANC treasurer-general) could be caught up in the unlawful transfer of funds to support the use of Virodene, which contained the highly toxic industrial solvent dimethylformamide. Clinical trials were being secretly conducted on it by the Tanzanian military.
In terms of the Public Finance Management Act financing a project like this would constitute “money laundering and fruitless expenditure”, a serious form of corruption. It would seem from this example that long before the [Zondo] state capture inquiry, corruption fever had already taken root within our government and young democracy — particularly in the department of health through the Sarafina scandal (1995) and now the covert Virodene clinical trials (1998) in Tanzania.
This matter of what appeared to be the irregular transfer of funds terrified her. Clinical trials into Virodene could not be conducted in South Africa because of the Medicine Control Council’s decision not to license the drug. It had declared the substance “unfit for human consumption”, so these clinical trials were allegedly being conducted and funded secretly through the ANC in Tanzania. Manto was fearful that should this be revealed the family would fall into disrepute and potentially be destroyed.
She sought my opinion during a flight between Cape Town and OR Tambo. It was such a hot potato, so juicy and yet potentially so damaging, that I was terrified when listening to her story.
I elected not to become involved any further in the matter; it was highly sensitive, confidential and personal and was being handled secretly at the highest organisational level. I could not imagine how someone at my level, with no affiliation to the movement, could offer help or advice.
I informed her that I could neither assist nor advise her and she appeared to understand my position and backed off. I made it very clear to her that this whole cover-up plan was highly dangerous and ill-advised. How could the leadership of our governing party be so desperately attached to an industrial solvent as a potential cure for Aids, I wondered? Such was the depth and breadth of Aids denialism.
Collaboration with this minister was the most traumatic experience. She was temperamental, unpredictable, mercurial, almost “bipolar” and quite often not sober … And yet she could also be soft, sweet and kind. She had a bed next to her office at work in the department of health, apparently for regular “naps and ordering special drinks or ‘joy juice’”. Allegedly she had a bell next to her bed that she would ring for orders of either tea/coffee or ‘joy juice’.
BLADE NZIMANDE,
WEARING TWO HATS
Under President Zuma I served Minister Bonginkosi Emmanuel “Blade” Nzimande, the first Minister of Higher Education (2009-2017). He was a scholar who enjoyed ideas especially those on education but was weak on implementation … Minister Nzimande was a former academic at Natal University, who understood and respected the universities’ cultures, autonomy and academic freedom very well.
There are many instances where he could have intervened, when, for example disgruntled staff, unions or students approached the Office of the President or Nzimande’s own office, bypassing established university internal processes with their complaints. But he often gave institutions the space and freedom to find and use their own internal policies and processes to resolve most of these complaints.
Minister Nzimande was an unashamed and proud Marxist and the General Secretary of the SACP, a position he held with distinction. Holding these two demanding portfolios could not have been easy or a wise decision. Perhaps he should not have been allowed to be, because on the face of it, one portfolio would naturally suffer at the expense of the other.
TREVOR MANUEL,
A VISIONARY LEADER
As commissioner in the first national planning commission (NPC), I served with Trevor Andrew Manuel during his term as minister in the Presidency for the NPC. Trevor, like Kader Asmal, is an avid reader, was decisive and enjoyed debates. He was very focused, goal and outcome/results oriented. He was a “shaper” and “complete finisher” in his leadership style.
In his office, some people, in jest, called him a slave driver because he worked everyone so hard. He ensured that we met our targets in the first NPC. Trevor, being a senior and influential member of the ruling party, was a very strong, long serving and successful minister of finance, a decisive and resourceful leader who became the foremost champion for the NPC … Serving as an NPC commissioner under Manuel and then ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was one of the most rewarding tasks I undertook in the first NPC and in drafting the national development plan.
I consider Manuel the most efficient and effective shaper and completer-finisher. He made the NDP a reality. His legacy is in transforming and stabilising the broken economy. He also led the development of the NDP, the national strategy.
In contrast, Tshabalala-Msimang, Essop Pahad and Pravin Gordhan have let the transformation project down
Looking back at the many ministers under whom I have served, it is apparent that ministers Bhengu, Dlamini Zuma, Ben Ngubane, Asmal, Pandor, Manuel and Aaron Motsoaledi distinguished themselves in advancing transformation. They all had deep knowledge and understanding of their portfolios. Their legacies are a testimony to their works. In contrast, Tshabalala-Msimang, Essop Pahad and Pravin Gordhan have let the transformation project down.
President Mandela was royalty and unquestionably belonged to a different generation and type of leadership (being traditional, sophisticated and championing a modern democracy); president Mbeki was like a company CEO; president Zuma was difficult to categorise and president Ramaphosa is indecisive. Although he is not a conviction politician, he is still a work in progress with many question marks surrounding his character, integrity, reputation, ethics and conduct. His lack of decisiveness and his failure to act, to carry through and implement his policies, are his weakest points, hence the term an avoidant leader.
These various leadership appointments gave me a unique opportunity to reconnect and to give a little back to my community and my country and make these observations and reflections. These are all major challenges for which there are no quick fixes or easy solutions but they are all a consequence of chronic, institutionalised colonialism and apartheid oppression.
The essential remedy begins with recognition and acceptance that damage has occurred to both the oppressed and the oppressor. Denial or rationalisation will only delay or avoid remedy and treatment. It was my dream that as African people we can do better and are better than we are said or portrayed to be.
My participation in these leadership positions was in part to ensure the realisation of this dream. As Africans we have much to offer the world in its diverse globalisation. As Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko said, as Africans we provided the face of humanity to the world.
***
President Zuma’s cabinet was not cohesive or organised as a collective. Whether this was deliberate, accidental or a mirror of the leader, is unclear. It was weak. It was during this period and despite several cabinet re-shuffles, that the height of State Capture was reached.
• This is an edited extract from Leadership for Transformation, by professor Malegapuru Mokgaba, published by Skotaville Academic Publishing
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