Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
CAPE TOWN - President Cyril Ramaphosa is a president on probation with his own party.
His stop-start approach towards combating corruption through bold action to remove predatory individuals from positions of power as well as strengthening the criminal justice system through timely appointment of the chief justice and other judicial officials has been scorned, including by previously supportive ANC veterans, as underwhelming.
Following the conclusion of the State of the Nation Address (Sona) debate, he has spent time getting briefed and on the phone to government leaders to deliberate on things he should have decisively acted on a long time ago but failed.
These include Parliament's standing committee on public accounts decision not to call him to answer questions about his knowledge of the use of state funds for ANC campaigns, the damning latest crime statistics report, the pile of Special Investigative Unit reports held back in The Presidency – one of which stands in the way of former health minister Zweli Mkhize’s return to the ANC leadership and Cabinet.
He has told journalists he has good reasons to delay the appointment of the chief justice, as he was consulting the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and various political parties represented in parliament.
But for how long the nation justifiably asks, given that this anticipated vacancy is taking more than five months to fill?
Perhaps the answer lies in that he is taken aback by the JSC’s decision to nominate a preferred candidate instead of providing him with a list of recommendations. “They went overboard. They nominated a person,” he said in dismay.
He has already reneged on his recent undertakings to lead the way, despite many assurances in his Sona, which have since become hollowed out.
Yes, despite saying that “we must now do everything in our power to ensure that state capture never happens again.”
Despite reaffirming his responsibility “to ensure that the state capture commission of inquiry report is properly and carefully considered and then acted upon.” Despite undertaking that by no later than 30 June, he will “present a plan of action in response to the commission’s recommendations.”
It was underwhelming to notice last week that Ramaphosa was quickly out of the blocks when the news arrived that the state capture commission of inquiry was seeking a further court extension for report submission, meant to be delivered at the end of February.
He jumped at the opportunity to also seek (and was granted) an extension to submit his plan of action to Parliament by August 30.
Questions remain: why did he introduce this delay when he could have acted decisively on the stand-alone recommendations already submitted in the two volumes of the report?
If the commission saw it practical to submit progressively the report in volumes, instead of holding back until it could finalise every recommendation, why does the president not implement its recommendations in the same fashion?
Fighting corruption and strengthening the criminal justice system require Ramaphosa to act in SA’s national interest, not in the interest of his political career.
These two have now become mutually exclusive. The aggression of those implicated in the state capture report has made solidarity for opponents of corruption paramount, whereas the crusade to unite ANC factions to which Ramaphosa hitched his political fortunes to ascend the presidency makes it more difficult.
In the context of a major challenge to swiftly implement the commission’s recommendations through political excision and judicial prosecution of corrupt individuals, the coming ANC conference looks more than ever like a monumental, parochial party folly of the moment.
It is brought about thanks to still entangled private business influence used by opportunistic politicians as a vehicle to control state power. There are widespread reports about many in the ANC structures, which are tailor-making branch delegation lists to the provincial and national conferences to influence leadership elections.
This historic year of decisive action against corruption could well show who SA's enemies are and who are its real allies. Ramaphosa will need to ditch his dithering Thuma Mina politics to meet the challenge this country faces.
To do so will demand a major change in approach from all three spheres of government and the president.
In particular, it will mean working hard, consistently and reliably with parliament and the judiciary, as well as businesses and the civil society on big issues that will demonstrate true commitment to his words that “we are standing together against corruption and to ensure that those who are responsible for state capture are punished for their crimes.”
It will require an end to smug claims by Ramaphosa to “rebuilding the State and restoring trust and pride in public institutions,” to exhortations to build “a new consensus which embraces our shared responsibility to one another, and acknowledges that we are all in this together,” when he can decide to freely chop and change his pledges by deferring to later in the year things he must and can do today.
It is a tall order. He should know better that trying times demand it all the same, as he smugly recalled the words of President Thabo Mbeki, who reminded us that: “Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times”.
These pledges for collective action were the easier bits. Warm words are Ramaphosa’s comfort zone.
But the infiltration of public institutions and state-owned enterprises by a criminal network intent on looting public money for private gain is not a verbal joust.
The devastating effects of this criminal activity on SAA, Transnet, Denel, Sars and the Government Communications and Information Service is a violent and dangerous fact.
To overcome these requires serious planning, deliverable agreements, effective deeds, the building of trust with allies, and sustaining the effort over a long period, if necessary at some financial and human cost that demonstrates political will.
This is the bit where Ramaphosa always falls down.
* Nyembezi is a policy analyst and human rights activist
Cape Times