President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
In his inaugural State of the Nation Address in 2018 — now famously known as his Thuma mina speech, inspired by the late musical icon Hugh Masekela — President Cyril Ramaphosa placed great emphasis on tackling corruption in his government, but he has failed to deliver.
A key part of this promise to eradicate graft, which placed the ANC-led government at a deficit, was a pledge to conduct lifestyle audits on the executive.
Ramaphosa’s executive at the time was under a cloud of allegations of corruption, with some officials, who he had inherited from his predecessor Jacob Zuma, implicated in state capture.
The president said it was time that the ANC-led government implemented resolutions on the conduct of — as well as did lifestyle audits on — all the people occupying positions of responsibility.
“That is something I believe we have to do, and this will be done, starting with the
executive of the country. The commissioner of police has also said that the high echelons of the police will also go through lifestyle audits,” the president said at the time.
But five years later, with his administration drawing to a close, Ramaphosa has failed to live up to his promise.
On Saturday, in response to Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen, Ramaphosa pointed to challenges in executing this promise. He said he anticipated that “this project will be concluded by the end of this financial year”, which concludes on 31 March, just two months before South Africa decides on its next administration in general elections.
Ramaphosa said part of the difficulty was that conducting lifestyle audits on members of the executive was not legislated.
“Therefore, in order to legitimately obtain the information of individual members in order to conduct the lifestyle audits, members of the executive had to grant consent in writing,” he said.
The director general’s office considered two options for conducting lifestyle audits on members of the executive, he said, including the use of the internal capacity within the government with the support of external expertise on aspects such as data analysis.
“Bodies such as the State Security Agency or the Special Investigating Unit could be considered to conduct the lifestyle audit. The second option was to fully outsource to an external audit firm or consortium of experts and closely project-manage the roll-out of the audit,” Ramaphosa said.
“The presidency is using both options — the pre-investigation phase, which is the first phase of the lifestyle audit, will be conducted by an external service provider.”
In a September statement, Steenhuisen criticised Ramaphosa, saying it was an ultimate indictment on his presidency that nearly six years since he promised to conduct lifestyle audits the process was still “shockingly incomplete and inconclusive”.
Steenhuisen said the DA’s Western Cape premier Alan Winde had initiated and concluded thorough and comprehensive lifestyle audits of all the members of his provincial executive within six months of promising them.
“It is equally unacceptable that President Ramaphosa can blame the delay in this process on a change of service providers. South Africans are tired of the excuses made to allow impunity to reign supreme under this government,” Steenhuisen said, adding that South Africans were “tired of getting poorer, hungrier and more desperate while ANC ministers live lives of luxury that continue to go unchecked”.
Ramaphosa’s second-in-command Paul Mashatile was recently reported to be living a lavish lifestyle in multimillion-rand homes owned by his benefactors — including corruption-accused Edwin Sodi, who received millions in government contracts — where he entertains a string of lovers and friends.
Mashatile denied this during an interview with the Mail & Guardian, saying that he was willing to subject himself to lifestyle audits to clear his name.
Political analyst Professor Mcebisi Ndletyana was pessimistic that Ramaphosa would eventually produce the lifestyle audits on his executive, saying that he made the commitment under pressure.
He said Ramaphosa’s commitment was “like many other commitments that the ANC has made under renewal, claiming there was a process of redress”.
“The statement was made to quieten down criticism and create an impression of something happening.”
Ndletyana said that Ramaphosa was unable to live up to his promise as some within his cabinet were implicated in state capture.
“That we have Nomvula [Mokonyane] as the deputy secretary general of the ANC tells you that the party is far from renewal.”
Renewal talk was “rhetoric meant for public relations”, he said.
“If you want to do audits you will have to act on findings. Once you investigate, you must overhaul, and some of these officials are in a network with politicians. That’s how this works. That is the character of this government,” he said.