The resignation in frustration by Hermione Cronje as head of the Investigating Directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) over being starved of resources underscores how it is almost impossible for the ANC, which has become systemically corrupt, to oversee investigation of its own leaders.
It is not only the leaders, deployed cadres and tenderpreneurs linked to the party who are under investigation — the reality is that the ANC itself is on trial.
This is why it is unlikely that investigative and prosecuting authorities will find the instigators behind the July looting after the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court. It would undermine the so-called unity of the party.
This means that ANC leaders and members are trying at all costs to block investigations, prosecutions and inquiries into corruption, crime and mismanagement by its loyal cadres.
The deeper issue behind the resignation of Cronje therefore is deliberate sabotage aimed at preventing successful prosecutions.
It may be in the public interest to bring corrupt ANC leaders, deployed government cadres and tenderpreneurs to book; the reality, however, is that many ANC leaders do not believe it is in the interest of the ANC.
Prosecutions will unleash a rebellion in the ANC, a full-on charge by factions of the corrupt to unseat President Cyril Ramaphosa as its leader, and will ultimately lead to the break-up of the party.
It will also unbridle prosecuted leaders to give damning information about corruption among members of the party's Ramaphosa faction. Former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini previously summed it up neatly: “All of us in the NEC [national executive committee] have our small skeletons and we don’t want to take all skeletons out because hell will break loose.”
Ramaphosa has insisted on pursuing a strategy of keeping the ANC united at all costs, supposedly to keep it intact as an election force, which in real terms translates into often exempting powerful ANC leaders, government officials and tenderpreneurs from prosecution.
The government appoints credible, capable and honest people such as Cronje to show the public it is genuine about cleaning up — only to deprive them of the necessary financial support, allow them to be handcuffed by the corrupt within the agencies they run and to have their bona fides continuously publicly questioned. In the end they are forced to resign in frustration, as Cronje did.
Ramaphosa has insisted on pursuing a strategy of keeping the ANC united at all costs, supposedly to keep it intact as an election force, which in real terms translates into often exempting powerful ANC leaders, government officials and tenderpreneurs from prosecution
Cronje has been denied the resources to hire highly skilled prosecutors, commercial crime analysts and experienced investigators who are not ANC cadres. Depriving Cronje of resources clearly shows that for the ANC government the prosecution of the corrupt is not a pressing priority, despite all the public rhetoric to the contrary.
Corrupt ANC cadres within the Investigating Directorate of the NPA, who are highly connected with the ANC leadership, have clearly blocked most efforts to launch investigations and prosecutions of corrupt, criminal and dishonest ANC cadres.
Because many deployed ANC cadres working in the NPA are connected to the ANC leadership they almost cannot be fired for insolence, incompetence or sabotage, because they will be protected.
The irony is that Ramaphosa’s “unity” strategy to hold the ANC together at all costs — and therefore protect the corrupt — will speed up the end of the ANC as an electoral force rather than achieve its aim of helping the party retain its electoral power.
Sadly, given the “unity” strategy is unlikely to be abandoned, SA may have to wait until the ANC is out of power — which is now very likely to be after the 2024 national elections — before seeing genuine investigations and prosecutions of the corrupt, criminal and dishonest.
• Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of 'Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times' (Tafelberg)
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