Each passing day Zimbabwe looks more like a country destined to bear out the adage that those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. This cradle of a great, ancient civilization, this most promising and beautiful of countries, is in the thrall of a lunatic who, in the service of his hubris, is willing to destroy himself and all about him.
Much as bullshit attracts flies, Robert Mugabe’s overweening vanity has drawn to him a swarm of toadies, thugs and crooks only too pleased to pander to him. Outside this circle, the rest of Zimbabwe waits in sullen and rising anger. The outlook is not good.
Mugabe and his cronies sense that this state of affairs cannot last. This much is apparent from their fear. They lash out at, sometimes murder, anyone they suspect may constitute some body of independent thought or represent a different way of doing things. Their list of targets has come to include trade unionists, workers, peasants, farmers, judges, journalists any form of democrat, whether black or white.
As the battle lines have been drawn an act of Mugabe’s choosing one of the more puzzling realisations for democrats across the southern African region has been that he does not fear the group of people with the power to bring him to his knees more quickly and peacefully than anyone else. This group is the South African government.
Why?
We, too, would like to know. Is there something we should be told about the relationship between our own president and Mugabe? Is our own government frozen by fear on the cusp of a difficult decision? Does Mugabe know that the African National Congress is so wedded to the notion that former liberation movements alone can constitute legitimate governments in post-struggle states that it will not do anything it believes might endanger Zanu-PF’s hegemony in Zimbabwe? Or does our government have a cunning plan which, even as we ask these questions, is being quietly and secretly rolled out to bring the country to stability in the near future?
We ask these questions, not because we are able to suggest any answers, but because we do not know. And because, like other South Africans, we have not been told. No one in government seems to consider us, the people, worthy of a serious explanation on the national approach to a problem that has already gravely affected our region’s stability and economy and, so, all of us. In place of a serious explanation, we are treated to irritation at our demand for an explanation, or we are fed a diet of unhelpful metaphors about what one neighbour might do if another’s house is on fire.
This simply will not do.
Swift ministerial action
Last week’s raids on Keith Kunene, the former chair of the Central Energy Fund, and Moses Moloele, the businessman who allegedly handed out the bribes, were a landmark event. It is the first time since 1994 that senior civil servants have been accused of accepting kickbacks. The raids have no doubt sent a shudder through the less salubrious sections of the South African business community. For not only do Kunene and Moloele appear to have been caught red-handed charges have yet to be laid but they also have seemingly been nailed with strikingly detailed information.
What is most impressive about the investigation by the National Director of Public Prosecutions is that it has come this far after only two months. It was only in December that Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka appointed Kroll Associates, an international intelligence company, to probe the deal, with the Scorpions taking over in January.
Mlambo-Ngcuka and her Cabinet colleagues have demonstrated considerable political courage in pursuing the case not least because of the stature of Kunene, a man who has become an icon of black empowerment. Apart from recommending a criminal investigation, Mlambo-Ngcuka has also replaced the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) board.
All of which comes at an opportune time for the government, which has been battling to deal with perceptions that it is soft on corruption in particular where the arms probe is concerned. In the SFF matter, the government has acted with a speed and determination that would arguably be unusual in most other countries.
One of the features of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s handling of the case has been her openness with the media. When the Mail & Guardian first uncovered the scandal, she was co-operative and accepting of the press’s role in such matters. She even memorably said that she was running out of honourable people to staff the state oil boards.
The spotlight has, of course, so far fallen on Moloele, his company High Beam, and Kunene. Trafigura, High Beam Trading International’s London- based partner, has so far not been directly linked in the criminal proceedings. There are already suggestions, however, in the affidavits filed in support of last week’s raid, that the money for the bribes came from Trafigura. The SFF has also sought to serve a summons against Trafigura saying that the contract with the SFF should be voided because the company was involved in “corrupt practices”.
Whatever happens where Trafigura is concerned, the case therefore also sends out a crucial signal to foreign companies: that, if they do try to bribe in South Africa, they stand a better chance than in most countries of being caught.