In an attempt to clear his name, Deputy President Jacob Zuma has launched his own informal investigation into allegations that he was involved in corruption in the government’s multibillion-rand weapons procurement programme.
This emerged after Zuma held a briefing about two weeks ago for African National Congress members in KwaZulu-Natal to protest his innocence and to drum up support. He has held discreet briefings in the province, his traditional base. His supporters have been lobbying for him in other provinces.
The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson, Mtholephi Mthimkhulu, confirmed that Zuma had held an informal briefing in Durban on the allegations he was facing. ”He reiterated he had nothing to hide and wants to go to court to put his side of the story, but he did not say he won’t go to [the] Hefer commission if he was called.”
Zuma’s spokesperson, Lakela Kaunda, has confirmed that Zuma has been invited to appear before the commission. She said he would first consult with the ANC about whether he should appear, as he was being asked to do so in his capacity as head of the party’s former intelligence services.
On Thursday the ANC issued a press release saying there is ”no basis for [Zuma] to appear before the Hefer commission”.
In the meantime, the rank and file of the ANC have thrown their support behind Zuma, despite allegations that he was involved in corruption in the government’s multibillion-rand arms procurement programme.
At the same time a sharp rift is developing between President Thabo Mbeki and senior ANC officials over his decision to appoint the Hefer commission to investigate whether National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was a spy for the former apartheid regime or abused his office.
Ngcuka has implicated Zuma in corruption in the arms deal, but refused to charge him in a court of law on the grounds that he was not convinced that he had enough evidence to secure a conviction.
It is widely believed in the ANC that Zuma, or his supporters, responded to the public prosecutor’s accusations by launching a smear campaign against him, which included allegations that Ngcuka was an apart-heid spy.
As a result, Zuma has been able to secure his popular base in the ANC and a place very near the top of the list of the organisation’s candidates for next year’s general election. ANC provincial structures are presently drawing up their lists of candidates for the poll. These provincial lists will be combined into a single national one at a conference tentatively scheduled for next month.
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Northern Cape, which have already held provincial conferences to decide on their lists of candidates, are believed to have given the deputy president a spot near the top. Zuma is also expected to top the ANC lists in Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and the North West when they hold their list conferences at the weekend.
”The allegations seem to have strengthened Zuma’s position,” remarked a senior ANC leader.
According to many, Zuma is an affable, approachable leader who has worked hard to stay in touch with the ANC grassroots despite his position as deputy president.
And, point out ANC officials, although not everybody may believe his hands are completely clean, to date no conclusive evidence has been produced of any wrongdoing on Zuma’s part. However, his credentials as a leader of the ANC were repeatedly proved during the struggle against apartheid.
Partly it is because of these credentials that it rankles his supporters, and other officials in the organisation, that he now publicly faces accusations of corruption by somebody who may have been an apartheid spy.
As a result, they have been angered and frustrated by Mbeki’s decision to deal with the accusations against Ngcuka through a public commission of inquiry. They would have much preferred the ANC to have quietly dealt with such accusations and counter-accusations in-house, as they have often had to do in the past. Now the ANC can only sit and seethe quietly while its name is dragged through the mud at a public inquiry.
An ANC national executive committee member remarked: ”By surrendering the investigations to the commission and the courts, the ANC leadership has lost control of the process.”
By many accounts, one of the ANC officials opposed to the appointment of the commission is ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, and as a result there is tension between Motlanthe and Mbeki.
Motlanthe is believed to be concerned that the commission will open a can of worms that the ANC has generally tried to keep tightly closed — who in its ranks spied for the apartheid government.
The worry is that if a widespread witch-hunt is launched, potentially many ANC and government officials who hold senior posts will be implicated and whatever work they have done over the past years will be discredited and undone. The organisation will likely be consumed by in-fighting and the government left rudderless.
There is also a danger that rather than tidying up the past, such an investigation could degenerate into a free-for-all as people use it as an opportunity to settle personal scores.
Motlanthe has publicly criticised the Scorpions, the investigative unit of the National Prosecuting Authority, for the way they have handled the investigation into the allegations against Zuma.
Ironically, in his weekly newsletter, ANC Today, Mbeki has also indicated that he wants to bury the matter of who in the ANC spied for the apartheid government. The difference between the two seems to be about the best strategy to deal with the apartheid spies issue.
ANC national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama denied there was any rift between Mbeki and Motlanthe. He said: ”There has been no disagreement between them on any issue.”
But Motlanthe and others in the ANC’s national headquarters, Luthuli House, are also believed to be irked by the lack of a decisive ”political” intervention in the crises on the part of the president. They want the matter brought to a head and closed, quickly.
Besides the political damage the ANC is suffering while senior figures publicly accuse each other of corruption and treachery, too many of its senior provincial and national leaders are now constantly preoccupied trying to work out where best to stand on the matter.
An ANC official in Mpumalanga reflected a common dilemma: ”Members feel that investigations related to the deputy president would have to be sanctioned by the president, thus the tensions. People don’t know whether they should be supporting Zuma and risk the danger of being perceived as anti-Mbeki.”
At the same time, however, Mbeki has appointed the Hefer commission to look into whether Ngcuka was a spy or abused his position, a move commonly seen as supporting Zuma.
The result is that ANC members, officials and senior leadership feel they have no better idea than ordinary members of the public about what is going on in their organisation.