Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
CAPE TOWN - Here we are as ordinary citizens, in our ringside seats at a corruption-stinking circus, watching on TV and Twitter, trapped between infinite pity and rational self-interest. The tension between two opposing forces is unbearable.
Pulling from one side, our horror at senseless looting of state resources, our wonder at the resilience of our democracy-supporting institutions and the patriotic individuals keeping them running, the screaming civil society organisations mobbing our courts to seek vindication of human rights trampled on by corrupt politicians and their connections or confronting government officials and state tender recipient companies implicated in one of the commissions of inquiry reports unearthing corruption as they continue to milk the public purse with impunity, and our sorrow at the sight of suffering ordinary citizens across the country due to serious human rights violations in the form of substandard delivery of basic services by government departments.
And from the other, those waiting outside the ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters for their turn to dip their hands in the public purse, the long-mile column of leadership contenders en route to the party’s 55th national conference in December, which we know could be scattered away from the party-defined path to unity in a matter of days by treacherous political manoeuvring missiles fired at one another by various factions, and stealth vote-buying cash invisible to radar.
The unlockable buckle restraining parliament from demanding an immediate and targeted implementation of the state capture commission of inquiry recommendations, instead of waiting for the August 30 grand deadline President Cyril Ramaphosa has conveniently set for himself is fear of palace war, and several powerful politicians that must be prosecuted for corruption, elevated into groups of deranged and unpredictable adversaries, has played us well.
So, we are strapped in place by a bluff we dare not call, expert watchers with speed dial numbers to radio talk shows, the mouse clicks and screen swipes, and in our communal anguish, incapable of much beyond hoping for the ANC conference delegates to politically excise corrupt leaders together with those who are dithering in office, and a string of court judgments compelling decisive executive action, alms from those who successfully take over control of the unstaffed Secretary-General’s office and other fulminations in the palace.
At each stage of the long presidential build-up of implementation plans based on numerous report recommendations on cases of corruption and maladministration in government, it was Ramaphosa’s privilege to call the next move and parliament to respond, which, accountability game theorists will insist, is weak play.
The strong hand of parliament acting as oversight over the executive first seeks cooperation, then, when failing to get it, comes back hard with raised stakes. But parliament is not a single player as the Constitution says it should be, it’s a crowd of 400 members from 14 political parties, and when groups make decisions, they tend to moderate. There are ghosts in the circus ring.
In February 2019, Ramaphosa delivered what analysts called a ‘cautiously hopeful’ State of the Nation Address, with promises and plans to drag South Africa out of a slow-growth economy while attending to the many social ills that had persisted since the dawn of democracy in the country.
Ramaphosa’s ‘new dawn’ approach to his presidency appeared to be in stark contrast to the administration of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, who Ramaphosa and the then finance minister Tito Mboweni had publicly accused of overseeing “nine wasted years” of governance that brought about economic decline and rampant corruption.
For his part, Zuma attempted to counter the narrative that the nine years he spent as president were ‘wasted’ saying that his critics within the ANC (alluding to Ramaphosa) who claim he wasted so many years were pointing fingers at themselves, as they were part of the same administration they were criticising.
Looking back at Zuma’s words, there are clear signs that the current Ramaphosa administration is protesting against clean government as it sleepwalks into further corruption.
It is getting there by slow steps, unhindered by nightmares of the Nkandla corruption scandal or a string of corruption cases that forever kept Zuma at the doorstep of the courts.
Now we are forced to interpret the tainted neural processes of one man in the presidency and his sickly dreams to usher in a ‘new dawn’.
This is the ultimate ‘madman wielding an axe in the kraal’ phenomenon in dominant party tactics that suffocate any democracy; if you cannot rely on your ‘thuma mina’ president to act logically to his advantage, you are frozen in place, waiting for his next move, unable to take risks by direct intervention.
The paradox is that the more parliament and the executive fail in the field to confront corrupt politicians, the more South Africans have to fear dispassionate looting in government. There seems no way out, for a dazzling ANC leadership succession that goes wrong in whatever direction would be South Africa’s nightmare, too.
For all our pity and anguish, our status as onlookers is luxurious. We have enjoyed moments of clownish light relief as details of corruption and its perpetrators were laid bare during commission hearings.
There are younger ghosts in the ring in the form of Zuma and ANC national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, who have joined a growing list of implicated individuals hitting back at the state capture commission of inquiry.
Its latest report released last Tuesday night focuses on Bosasa, as it found ‘reasonable grounds to suspect’ that Zuma's relationship with the company was in breach of his ‘obligations under the Constitution'.
It also found that Mantashe benefited from Bosasa's ‘corrupt modus operandi’. The Jacob Zuma Foundation rubbished the finding, saying it was ‘not even worth the paper (it was) written on’, while Mantashe has vowed to appeal the findings in court. All while Ramaphosa is buying time in what many commentators suspect is a calculated move to demoralise the population.
Between the screaming failure of parliament to hold the executive to account for inaction in the implementation of all outstanding anti-corruption commitments and the right of an impeachment-facing president to choose to act only on the last day of a court-imposed August 30 deadline, there may appear to be no compromise. But all brokered political actions to remove corrupt individuals from power begin with such irreconcilables.
A sophisticated, if the not sophistic political-will-driven culture that includes various social partners should now be straining all its resources to devise, as an urgent first move and with all the ingenuity and compassion it can muster, the terms of a decisive implementation plan to drag South Africa out of a decapitating corruption, while attending to the many social ills that have persisted since the dawn of democracy. Without the attempt, we will be condemned to watch further haemorrhaging up close – and we will never forgive ourselves.
Nyembezi is a human rights activist and policy analyst
Cape Times