Making uKhahlamba (Drakensberg) out of a molehill. This is the government’s appraisal of a week that has rocked the country as its second-in-command, Jacob Zuma, stands accused of becoming a rent-a-deputy-president.
In papers before court this week, Zuma emerges as a leader mortgaged to his friend and business adviser Schabir Shaik, who used this once-fine leader as political capital to win and to attempt to win lucrative government contracts, most notably those related to the arms deal.
The allegations are jaw-dropping. Millions of rand wound their way from Shaik into Zuma’s account; multinationals were solicited for more bribe money. The picture of the deputy president that emerges from the charge sheet against Shaik is not only of a leader with wayward personal finance skills, but of one who was willing to sacrifice clean government to avarice and to sacrifice the trust the nation had placed in him on the altar of personal expediency. The relationship was corrupt, say the court papers.
These are not wild allegations of a peacenik crowd — the other intimation in the government’s response this week. They are the considered findings of the government’s own National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
This is not a molehill, it is a mountain. Zuma’s approach this week is that it is a storm that will blow over — in fact, he set off for a conference on desertification in Havana, Cuba. Despite the ruling party and the government’s rallying around him, let there be no mistake: Zuma is in a political desert. He has two options: to stand down or to take the nation into his confidence, not with the blustering, obfuscatory and blanket denials he’s issued until now, but by answering the very substantial allegations made against him.
Ideally, he should answer in a court of law — and the jury is still out on Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka’s decision not to prosecute, despite prima facie evidence of corruption. If not in a court, then in a public forum.
It is not good enough for Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna to say that the case against Shaik may turn up evidence that will allow an eventual prosecution against Zuma or for the African National Congress to assert that he has been exonerated and that the sorry saga is now behind us. It is not, and Shaik’s case could meander on for years.
If the deputy president’s contention is that he does not owe the nation answers, then the honourable thing for him to do would be to step down. Over the past four weeks, Zuma has had no compuction about attacking the Scorpions in public and accusing them of having ulterior agendas. He now needs to move beyond those blustery defences and tell us in detail why the unit is not to be trusted. He needs to tell us why the nation should regard Shaik as a more trustworthy individual than Ngcuka. He needs to assure us — through detailed explanations of his financial situation — that he is not “owned” by anyone, as the charge sheet indicates. He needs to prove to us that decisions affecting this sovereign nation will never be unduly influenced by his alleged relationship with a defence company that has close ties to the French government.
Zuma’s image and reputation now lie in tatters. What the nation read and heard about him this week raises serious questions about whether he is presidential material — or even whether he should be in the seat he is currently occupying. He needs to take steps to restore the public’s trust in him and his office. The storm will not blow over.
Characteristically, the ANC head office has adopted the instinct to defend, resorting to conspiracy theories about dark forces out to get the deputy president. Zuma was, said a functionary, the victim of a national “lynch mentality”; another said he was the victim of an unnamed political agenda. The party also went, as has government, for a technical, legalistic reading of the rocky week. He has not been found guilty by a court of law, therefore he is innocent. Such an account is myopic, failing to take account of the NPA’s findings or of its authority. The matter is now before the court of public opinion. That is where Zuma needs to acquit himself.
The struggle is over; the era of modernity and democracy upon us. The laudable principle of “stand by your leaders” is not the simple one it was in the fight against apartheid and we cannot be blind to fallibility.ÂÂ
The ANC is in government and the party needs to keep an open mind to guard the very Constitution it has put in place. Often that will mean standing up against its leaders. The showing this week was poor, and indications are that a grassroots challenge could come, as the ANC has never been comprised of blind loyalists alone.
The lessons of the week show the fight against corruption is a long trek and we are, in fact, only at the foot of uKhahlamba. All who have laid the charge of “trial by media” are being disingenuous, because the government is quite happy to use the media to fight its battles. The media will, and should, always make a hullabaloo about corruption and will doggedly pursue those who betray the solemn pact of April 27 1994.
South Africa needs to be much feistier in pursuing those who corrupt our leaders, including the multinationals complicit already in greasing the palms of former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and those who allegedly offered Zuma a bribe.
The tender system, through which the state purchases goods and services from the private sector, is the locale of so much graft that it is obviously filled with holes that need to be fixed. The blurring of the lines between party and government and between politics and business is something that needs to be attended to if we are to avoid the institutionalised corruption that constitutes American politics and which has seen so many countries on our continent fail to achieve progress.
So, no, the events of this week are not a molehill, but a signal that, in fact, we have many mountains to climb.