Mathews Phosa’s political career may be at an end, but he won’t go down without a fight. Wally Mbhele and Makhosini Nkosi report
As the African National Congress late this week announced its far-reaching findings on the political divisions behind the collapse of provincial structures in Mpumalanga, outgoing Premier Mathews Phosa came out blazing and immediately announced his intentions to sue “certain individuals” he holds responsible for defaming him.
The latest saga in the Mpumalanga political fiasco has also raised speculation that Phosa’s political career may soon come to an end, as the ANC is believed to be preparing to axe him as the party’s provincial chair. It is understood the entire provincial executive committee, which has been mobilised behind Phosa in recent weeks, will be dissolved in a similar fashion to the way the Free State ANC was disbanded in 1996 when Patrick “Terror” Lekota was ousted as premier and ANC chair.
Justifying his decision to go to court, Phosa said: “If I don’t do this, many comrades who’ll face similar smear campaigns and allegations in the future won’t be protected. People would be made to look like stupids before the nation.”
It is understood a special provincial conference where the new party leadership will be announced will be convened soon and both Phosa and his rival deputy chair, January “Ch” Masilela, are likely not be allowed to stand for the position of the party’s provincial chair.
Provincial party insiders say Phosa will head the provincial list of candidates to be deployed to the National Assembly, while Masilela will be retained in the provincial government. This move by the ANC could spell the end of Phosa’s political career.
He is believed to be extremely bitter about the manner in which the ANC has dealt with allegations against him and is particularly not impressed about the fact that while he’ll be deployed to Cape Town, some of his principal critics will remain in the province. “He is contemplating retiring from active politics and may tender his resignation from the government sooner than you may expect,” says one source.
The ANC announced on Thursday that Phosa, with other members of the provincial executive committee, will face the party’s disciplinary committee on charges yet to be formulated. This has been recommended by the party’s internal commission of inquiry which was set up in August last year to investigate organisational divisions in Mpumalanga.
The party’s head of presidency, Smuts Ngonyama, said Phosa’s style of leadership was autocratic and encouraged factionalism. The commission also found sections of the provincial ANC youth league, under Phosa’s chief accuser, James Nkambule, were involved in divisive activities which resulted in the league being used to advance the interests of certain groups.
The commission has recommended that the provincial ANC elections list – currently topped by Phosa – be reviewed to ensure the divisions do not resurface. Nkambule will be “politically rehabilitated”, which means he will be barred from taking part in any ANC structures for a limited period.
The commission was set up after allegations – mainly from Nkambule and some provincial leaders – that Phosa’s leadership style in the province was autocratic. This was after Nkambule was suspended from the Mpumalanga Parks Board by Phosa for alleged corruption involving money he received from parks board chief Alan Gray in deals involving the Dolphin group.
Phosa instructed and assisted Judge Willem Heath’s special investigation into the parks board, particularly into the conspiracy between Gray and Nkambule in setting up fictitious companies into which millions were channelled.
Shortly after Nkambule’s fraudulent activities were exposed, he is alleged to have joined hands with Phosa’s long-standing critics in the province and intensified a fight against Phosa. Nkambule was once Phosa’s close confidant.
With Nkambule at the forefront of this fight, a dossier of damaging allegations against Phosa was compiled and handed to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki at the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg.
This document also formed part of the ANC’s case against Phosa. In part, it alleged that Phosa connived with several journalists to discredit Mbeki’s leadership and tarnish the name of the party’s deputy president, Jacob Zuma.
This, according to Nkambule, was motivated by Phosa’s desire to resist President Nelson Mandela’s instructions that he step down from the race for the party’s deputy presidency in the run-up to the organisation’s Mafikeng conference in December 1997.
According to the ANC, the media were used as lobbying mechanisms for specific candidates and “regularly briefed to run negative and disparaging articles on Zuma and to project the image of Phosa as a credible candidate for the deputy presidency of the ANC”.
Although Ngonyama says this group of journalists is known to the ANC, he did not name them, but has announced that “they will be spoken to individually”.
In his document, Nkambule also claimed that Phosa was an apartheid spy and was involved in drug and arms smuggling. The ANC has been unable to prove these allegations and Nkambule’s former bodyguards and colleagues in the ANC Youth League are understood to have broken ranks and effectively dismissed the allegations in separate evidence before the commission.
Said a fuming Phosa: “I want to clear my name. If I took money from Dolphin, where is the evidence to prove this? How much did I take from Dolphin? If I was dealing in drugs, where did I buy them from and whom was I supplying? If indeed I was a spy, who was my handler and who are the people I was spying against?
“People make all sorts of allegations and yet they don’t have a moral duty to prove them. People who were entrusted with handling these allegations acted carelessly. They preferred to act negligently. All the journalists alleged to have connived with me in discrediting ANC leaders are still alive but they were not questioned nor cross-examined.”
An official close to Phosa told the Mail & Guardian that the commission was trying “to vilify comrade Phosa so that they can get their premier candidate to become popular and accepted in the province. The commissioners acted as policemen, prosecutors and judges at the same time. They did not lead evidence. Their allegations were not corroborated. Witnesses gave evidence in secret and were not subjected to any cross- examination. That’s not how the system of justice works.”
The candidate for premiership, Johannes Mahlangu, has been facing stiff resistance. What is most bizarre about the anti- Mahlangu protests is that opposition to his appointment appears to be strong in the Highveld region where he originally came from.