Wally Mbhele
A series of political humiliations, including bitter encounters with President Thabo Mbeki, lies at the heart of this week’s decision by former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa to quit politics for a new career in the business sector.
Besides tensions between Phosa and Mbeki, Phosa is understood to be bitter about the way he was recently pushed out of the Mpumalanga premiership, accusing some African National Congress leaders of using ”criminals” to get rid of him. Apparently, Phosa was referring to his chief accuser, JamesNkambule, the discredited former ANC Youth League leader, on whose evidence the party heavily relied to oust Phosa.
Nkambule has publicly admitted his involvement in corruption at the scandal- stricken Mpumalanga Parks Board. He began to wage a campaign against Phosa shortly after he was fired from the parks board for lining his pocket with more than R60 000 of taxpayers’ money he allegedly received from the equally corrupt parks board boss, Alan Gray.
Phosa, who announced his resignation on Thursday, July 29, has already started setting up a consultancy, which will focus on the promotion of trade and investment in the region and internationally. He is understood to be involved with a group of black businesspeople and is also linked to an unnamed mining group. One of the businesses he is connected to is believed to be on the verge of listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The Mail & Guardian has been reliably informed that Phosa – who is understood to have been involved in a series of consultative meetings with senior ANC leaders in recent weeks about his intention to quit politics -even rejected an offer to chair one of the parliamentary portfolio committees.
Former president Nelson Mandela has also held a meeting with Phosa where his departure was discussed. ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma is understood to be among those who have met with Phosa.
The ANC-led tripartite alliance secretariat in Mpumalanga has apparently indicated its full support for Phosa’s move to business. ”Even at national level, he’s spoken to a few individual national executive committee members who have agreed,” said sources from within the ANC structures in Mpumalanga.
Sources who are familiar with what Phosa has been thinking about his political future, including his close associates, spoke to the M&G (on condition of anonymity) about the pain and anguish he’s gone through since the ANC’s national conference in Mafikeng in December 1997.
The beginning of Phosa’s problems with some party heavyweights, including Mbeki, can be traced to the run-up to the ANC’s national conference, when he was reportedly asked not to run for the party’s deputy presidency.
Since then, he has twice tried to resign his position as Mpumalanga premier, but was each time persuaded by Mandela to stay – the last occasion being late last year when ”screws to destroy his credibility were tightened”.
Before the Mafikeng conference, he is said to have been deliberately set up against Mandela following a meeting with Mbeki in which he was asked not to contest the party’s deputy presidency against Zuma.
”The idea was not imposed on him. The ANC’s long-held tradition of political succession, which gives priority to the older generation for senior leadership positions, was cited as a reason,” said one source.
Phosa is said to have agreed to support Zuma and opted to make a public announcement that he would not contest the position.
”He considered Zuma to be his political mentor since the time when they established a close working relationship in exile,” the M&G was told.
However, he was persuaded not to publicly step down from the race as that would result in more contenders seizing the opportunity to contest the position.
But, according to insiders, Phosa was puzzled when Mandela called him to a meeting where he expressed concern about reports that he was not willing to make way for Zuma. Mandela became angry after speaking to Phosa when he realised that he was being played against individual ANC leaders. ”The exposure of this political trickery made people angry with Phosa forever,” the M&G was told.
Since then, Phosa is said to have started receiving concerted political knocks, which culminated in an orchestrated campaign by powerful party members to marginalise him.
”The whole saga was meant to smear him and little did he realise that he’d never be forgiven for exposing their treachery to Mandela,” said a source.
Soon after the Mafikeng conference, opposition to Phosa’s leadership started growing from a clique of provincial ANC leaders led by Nkambule. This scheme also involved ANC provincial deputy chair January Masilela.
The conspiracy against Phosa saw a delegation of a few provincial leaders – under Nkambule’s leadership – paying Mbeki a visit in Johannesburg. They were armed with a file of what they said was damaging evidence of Phosa’s corrupt behaviour.
A member of this delegation, who decided to dissociate himself from the allegations once they were presented to Mbeki, is understood to have confessed that their plan was to set a ”precedent by being the first province to suspend its premier”.
When this matter came to the attention of Mpumalanga ANC structures, it was decided to set up a provincial commission of inquiry to investigate the source of press leaks consistently hostile to Phosa.
Then the ANC national office decided to step in and take over the commission’s work. ”They hijacked an innocent commission and made it a witchhunt directed against Phosa. He was surprised when certain ANC leaders started attacking him about Mpumalanga,” the M&G was told.
The commission’s findings, according to Phosa’s confidants, was the last straw for the embattled Phosa. While it found that both Phosa and Masilela were the source of factions in the province, it was particularly ”vicious” against Phosa, accusing him, among other things, of conspiring with a certain group of journalists to discredit Zuma.
”If anybody caused factions in Mpumalanga, it’s them and not Phosa. They even rewarded those who fought him with senior government positions in the province,” sources said this week. They pointed out that allegations about journalists cannot be sustained because even journalists who were allegedly part of the conspiracy were not talked to.
”He feels that the whole report was based on allegations that cannot be tested in a court of law. The rules of natural justice were not applied. The report was structured on untested allegations. [Phosa] thinks they thought he’d resign when Ndaweni Mahlangu was announced as new provincial premier. The press conference was supposed to destroy him …
”He opened a moral gap between himself and those who were attacking him. They can do whatever they want to but he believes the ANC grassroots membership will finally judge the matter.
”One particular aspect of the report that makes him even more angry is that while the report found that he and Masilela were part of the factions, it only recommended that he be redeployed while Masilela was promoted by being co-opted on to the ANC national executive committee. Masilela was also rewarded with an MEC position by Mahlangu in the province.”
n Howard Barrell reports that Phosa is a candidate for the post of executive director of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa. The organisation’s executive officer, Paul Graham, said Phosa had applied for the post earlier this year.