President Thabo Mbeki presents an extraordinary State of the Nation address this year: he is politically weaker than he has ever been, and paradoxically, because of the economy, stronger too.
In this context, he should ditch the usual format of his address, lose the PowerPoint presentation of numbers of homes electrified, jobs created and promises kept to focus on the genuine state of the nation. He should, this year, talk to its soul and its many-textured diversity, rather than treating the country like a problem to be solved. He should be a leader, and not the technocratic manager that shines through the six State of the Nation addresses he has already delivered.
Here, we offer the speech we believe he should have given.
“I make bold to say that last year was an awful year, our annus horribilis. Our public life was rocked when I relieved my deputy, the honourable Jacob Zuma, of his duties. It was a necessary step for the good of our young nation. Now, the law must take its course.
“Earlier this year, our public life was rocked again when my new deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, ‘messed up’, as she herself put it, spending R700 000 of taxpayers’ money on a holiday. I pledge that all members of the Presidency and of the Cabinet will no longer take holidays at state expense and that we will travel economy class to give expression to our Batho Pele programme.
“Some amongst us have informed me that they do not like the way I manage the ruling party, that my political style is too centralising and that I try to exercise too much control over the grassroots. I am, therefore, pleased to announce that our Cabinet has decided to implement the key recommendations of the honourable Van Zyl Slabbert’s electoral task team. We will move speedily to introduce a constituency-based system.
“And as, after 12 years, we have made all the deployments necessary, I have disbanded the ruling party’s deployment committee. This step should help to ensure that the country uses all the skills at its disposal as we grow the economy in this second decade of freedom.
“While the honourable Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, will present his Budget on February 15, I would also like to announce that with a revenue overrun of R60-billion, we will immediately use this money to bring relief to those who keep the second economy running: the gogos of our rural areas. We will double the old age pension in recognition of the fact that pensions keep many poor rural families alive.
“And, finally, I pledge that this year we will build on our reputation as the country with the world’s largest anti-retroviral programme. While we have managed to provide these life-extending medicines to more than 60 000 people, hundreds of thousands of South Africans still need them. HIV and Aids is the biggest challenge facing our country and it must be admitted that we have not tackled it with the necessary energy and commitment.
“With our coffers running over, with the JSE booming, with hope still high, there is no need for this year to be like the last. I will not stay for a third term, as I have said many times before. South Africa is not a country short of talent and neither is my party …”
The Public what?
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time is enemy action, a James Bond novel tells us. And 10 or 20 times? Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s findings on Oilgate look more like a massive oil-slick every day, a cover-up, a whitewash, riddled as they are with oversights, omissions, inaccuracies and a failure to use the vast resources and power at his disposal.
This week, another shortcoming of his report has been exposed. Mushwana, in his haste to clear all wrongdoing in the course of the scandal, failed to unearth the fact that just four weeks before Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya and his wife received a R65 000 loan from businessman Sandi Majali, a consortium that included Majali and IT Lynx wrote to him demanding the implementation of a stalled R500-million contract for Skweyiya’s department.
Did Mushwana’s investigators, notably that tireless defender of the executive and former apartheid-era bureaucrat “Stifle” (Stoffel) Fourie, overlook this detail?
One of Skweyiya’s key defences was that as a national minister he had no jurisdiction over a contract relating to the payment of social grants, a provincial competency. Why, then, did IT Lynx write to him? And was he unaware that a shareholder in that company was the very same man who, a few weeks later, transferred a large sum of money for the renovation of a house jointly owned by Skweyiya and his wife? What the Mail & Guardian has now discovered, and the protector apparently overlooked, is that the contract in question was not a provincial matter — it was for a national project aimed at creating a computer backbone for the payment of social grants.
Skweyiya says he did not know at the time of Majali’s connection with IT Lynx or indeed with other players in the grant payment business. Is this likely, given the apparent closeness of the relationship between the controversial businessperson and the Skweyiyas? That’s one of the questions Mushwana never probed.
The fact is that Mushwana’s “investigation” fails utterly to get to grips with the issues. Public suspicion of a cover-up and damage to this important constitutional watchdog will continue until the unanswered questions are addressed. The M&G is contesting Mushwana’s report in court. We are more convinced than ever that it needs to be reconsidered for the sake of our Constitution and for the integrity of the essential institution it has created. We must put the public good back into the protector’s office.