If you’re feeling relieved at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s conference election victory and regard it as a win for renewal, you’ve clearly been sitting in the dark of your load-shedded home for too long. Rather than support for Ramaphosa’s cleanup, the conference outcomes confirm he has become the perfect foil for an organisation whose members find increasingly sophisticated ways to loot the public purse. With impunity.
State capture is all so yesterday now, replaced by industrial-scale looting, increasingly in the form of the dodgy and ultimately useless tender for some or other good or service procured from a politically connected supplier. We saw this pattern emerging during the Covid lockdown, when “businesses” were set up overnight to take advantage of government contracts. Overpriced bars of soap, masks with a hefty premium and personal protective equipment with sickening markups became the norm.
Much of this looting by another name is justified under the rubric of BEE, which ultimately forces the poorest of the poor to forgo public goods and services because funds have been allocated elsewhere to overpriced goods. Those who dare to blow the whistle on organised theft, such as Gauteng department of health official Babita Deokaran, who was murdered for exposing looting at Tembisa Hospital, are dealt with ruthlessly. No-one will be allowed to stand in the way of shameless criminality enriching those who camouflage their evil by claiming they alone care for the poor.
No-one, least of all Ramaphosa. He knows, and everyone else in the ANC knows, that he has been hopelessly compromised by Phala Phala. They can breathe a sigh of relief: how can Ramaphosa claim the moral high ground when we still don’t know what went down on his Limpopo game farm? The foreign currency stashed in his sofa remains of uncertain provenance. Even our supposedly rejuvenated law enforcement agencies appear to have made little headway in their investigations, such as they are.
Principle was the last thing on delegates’ minds when they voted. Renewal this wasn’t
Besides, even if the delegates had thought Ramaphosa was no longer fit to govern, why would they have put their faith in his opponent, former health minister Zweli Mkhize? His hollow candidacy, and the fact that he appeared to have closed the gap on Ramaphosa as the chaotic Nasrec event gathered pace, suggest an ANC that has truly lost its moral bearings. What exactly did Mkhize have to offer? His alleged involvement in the Digital Vibes scandal is presumably worse than Ramaphosa’s alleged transgression in that it involves public money. But such is the ANC’s sliding scale of political morality that Mkhize attracted a quantum of support that suggests something other than morality was at play.
Principle was the last thing on delegates’ minds when they voted. Renewal this wasn’t.
Consider how delegates who voted for Ramaphosa’s new broom to banish state capture were equally happy to support a Saxonwold shebeen regular in former minister Malusi Gigaba. And if you’re a party that claims to be leading the battle against gender-based violence, who better to vote in at No 2 than convicted woman-beater Mduduzi Manana? If you back Ramaphosa to clean up, why not also vote in a leading light of the anti-Ramaphosa brigade, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who found her conscience just in time to vote for an impeachment process against the directive of the national executive committee (NEC)?
Criminal conviction blocking your way to the NEC? Not if you’re convicted perjurer Bathabile Dlamini. A quick tweak of the rules, on the hoof as it were, and you’re in.
What we saw at Nasrec was that perfect astronomical phenomenon known as a planetary alignment in which the celestial bodies are seen to be lining up in perfect harmony. It’s an arrangement that benefits everyone.
As if to underline the notion of reciprocity, consider the case of mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe, Ramaphosa’s “hard man” at the conference. Days before, he had accused outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter of treasonous activity.
Ramaphosa said not a word to defend a hardworking South African whose heart was undoubtedly in the right place. Instead, when he delivered his political report, Ramaphosa added a new paragraph that was not in his written script. After saying South Africa must consider the use of “emergency power” while Eskom collapses, he digressed to give Mantashe’s beloved Karpowership a special boost, saying it is “an option that has to be focused on as we move forward”, because “various interventions were made to stall that”.
This was music to Mantashe’s ears no doubt, and reward for his support. But it was part of the general mood music of mutual gratification that played out in the background.
Prepare for another new dawn. And more darkness at noon.
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