The Scorpions have launched a formal investigation into a smear campaign against their boss Bulelani Ngcuka that was ratcheted up this week when two e-mailed pages of serious allegations against him were sent to editors around the country.
Ngcuka, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, hit back on Thursday, alleging that those involved had failed to use their ”political and business connections” to derail high-level fraud and corruption investigations.
”In a way it’s flattering that they’ve chosen to single me out publicly. It shows they have failed to corrupt me,” he said.
The allegations contain both personal and political tarnishes about Ngcuka, charging that he is selective in his prosecutorial practice. ”The current harassing of Jacob zuma [sic] is another example of this political agenda Bullelani [sic] knows there is no real evidence to support his investigation but he knows that the very mention of an investigation is harmful to zuma [sic],” says the document.
The smear, allegedly a response to the corruption charges levelled against Deputy President Jacob Zuma, takes the battle into the heart of the African National Congress.
Although Ngcuka himself acknowledges that there has been no political interference in the case, it is understood that the party’s leadership is leaning on Ngcuka to complete the case against Zuma (first revealed in the Mail & Guardian in December last year) because it’s hanging like a dark cloud both over the government and the party’s election preparations.
The ANC has kicked off its election nomination process and if Zuma is cleared and stands for Parliament, he is likely to retain his position after next year’s election. The prosecutions directorate is aiming to complete the Zuma investigation by the end of August, an end-date taking up the political temperature and reportedly getting the deputy president’s defendants into gear.
Zuma is alleged to have solicited a bribe from defence contractor, Thales, through his financial adviser Schabir Shaik.
Shaik is also the chief executive of Nkobi Holdings, a company that has benefited significantly from sub-contracts related to the arms deal.
Both Zuma and Ngcuka are senior party figures, though the latter no longer holds any office. Each enjoys support among influential constituencies, though Ngcuka’s prosecution of political heavyweights like ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and national executive member as well as women’s league president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela suggest that he operates independently.
The case is therefore proving to be a test case for the ANC, with some in the organisation feeling that the investigation should not run its course.
But the ANC, as the governing party, cannot be seen to be interfering in the execution of justice and has therefore remained mum on the subject. President Thabo Mbeki has consciously kept his distance from the probe as his showing of any interest would either be seen by opposition parties and detractors as interference or by some in the ANC alliance as tacit approval for the political elimination of a perceived rival.
But this has not stopped factions within the ANC from speaking out internally against the probe.
”It’s a terrible thing and I don’t just see it as an attack against me, but as an attack against the organisation — [the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions]. It’s a direct result of the work we’re doing,” Ngcuka said. ”It’s not the first time that smear attempts have been made, but it’s the first time they’ve come into the open.”
This week’s anonymous e-mail follows a June allegation that Ngcuka was set to quit for a career at diamond company De Beers — a position that would raise conflicts of interest with the job of his wife, Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Rebutting the De Beers claim at the time, Ngcuka warned ”comrade criminals” to desist from interference — a charge that provoked an angry response from Shaik, who felt targeted.
Shaik is holding up the conclusion of the Zuma case because he has until August 4 to appeal a court case won by the Scorpions last week, compelling him to testify against Zuma.
”This is the case testing the maturity of our democracy and the integrity of the institutions, so the investigation must be done properly,” said Ngcuka, adding that he has faced no party political pressure.
The case is also political high-stakes: Zuma is deputy president of both the country and the party.
Personable and popular, he is credited with the political accommodation the ANC reached with the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1994 and has served well as deputy president. Through turbulent periods, he has kept the alliance on track and is still regularly called in to firefight.
Recently, his negotiating skills have been put to the test in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi where he is South Africa’s frontman. Though of presidential material, he nevertheless publicly (and without being solicited) in 2001 declared no interest in the top job.
That said, Zuma enjoys the support of influential constituencies including national intelligence, KwaZulu-Natal provincial party structures and traditional leaders. His name is top in the hat for a successor to Mbeki, who starts his second and final term next year.
”If he’s going to be promoted, JZ has to clear his name,” says an ANC official.
Intelligence structures believe the Scorpions have nothing that will stick to Zuma and maintain a strong loyalty to a man who was the ANC’s head of intelligence in exile.
ANC insiders in KwaZulu-Natal, from where Zuma hails, feel the fact that no one substantiated the charges against the deputy president actually favoured his re-election at the ANC’s national conference at Stellenbosch last December.
An ANC leader in the province said: ”Everyone assumed that it was a campaign to discredit him, so he was re-elected as deputy president. Now again the stories have started circulating — so one now assumes that it might be linked to the upcoming elections. Unless someone comes up with some proof against Zuma — no one is going to bother.”
Clearly, with the case winding up and with the evidence against him leaking, foot soldiers are starting to bother. Former transport minister and ANC leader Mac Maharaj is also from the province and the Scorpions case against him is also getting into gear, raising the spectre of an alliance of linked interests opposing the prosecutorial heat.
Officially, the ANC headquarters is adopting a wait-and-see approach, as it did with the prosecution of Yengeni and Madikizela-Mandela when it held off action and comment until the law had run its course.
But unofficially, this is a case that will herald a period of high political drama for the ruling party. ”Charging a deputy president has serious implications for the country and for the continent [given his work],” says a source close to the party.