The involvement of Cabinet ministers in the Gautrain rapid-rail project shareholding has been defended by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has argued that there has been a determination to cast them in a bad light — motivated by the stereotype that black people are corrupt.
In his regular internet column ANC Today on Friday, the president said that ”the multi-party offensive” of accusers of the African National Congress (ANC) — including the media, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) — are determined to project his ruling movement as being ”nothing more than a cabal of mercenary politicians, posing as liberation fighters” and motivated by the conviction that the ANC has been caught in the act of engagement in personal self-enrichment and parasitic capitalism.
This follows a story last weekend in the Sunday Times entitled ”Gautrain: Who gets the gravy?” He quotes the article as saying that two Cabinet ministers and a deputy minister — as well as the National Assembly speaker — have shares in the consortium that is building the high speed Gautrain between Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Mbeki defended Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and speaker Baleka Mbete, acknowledging that they are ”indeed” founding members of Dyambu, which is linked with the Gautrain.
But he notes that both of them have not had any contact with Dyambu since 2000 ”and do not even own any share certificates”. Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was never among those who established Dyambu, which is linked to the winning bidder, Bombela.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor bought shares in Black Management Forum Investment Company (BMFI) — also linked to Bombela — ”long before she came into [the] government”.
The fact is that ”like thousands of other black shareholders, Naledi Pandor holds a tiny fraction of the issued share capital of the BFMI and would be exceedingly foolish to expect that the dividends that might one day flow from her minute ownership could buy her even a month’s supply of brown bread”.
He noted that the national Cabinet — in which Mapisa-Nqakula and Pandor serve — has ”absolutely nothing to do with the conceptualisation of the Gautrain project, the decision to implement it, the issuing of the tender, the adjudication of the bids and the decision to award the Gautrain contract to the Bombela consortium”.
”This process in its entirety was handled by the Gauteng provincial government. The national government was drawn into this matter simply because it became obvious that the Gauteng provincial government would not have the resources to implement the Gautrain project.”
Mbeki said he had in the past — in reference to the arms deal — ”made the point” that a central and permanent feature of racism experienced by black people over many centuries ”has been the stereotype that as black people we are inherently amoral and corrupt”.
”Thus some in our country and elsewhere in the world know it as a matter of fact that our government is bound to be amoral and corrupt.”
Mbeki, noting the temporary alliance of the DA’s Tony Leon, Cosatu’s Patrick Craven and the SACP’s Jeremy Cronin in slamming the ANC over the project, said because of the stereotypes ”it is very easy successfully to market all manner of deliberate falsehoods about the ANC and our government, counting on the stubborn persistence of an insulting stereotype to give credibility to the outrageous untruths”.
The DA, SACP, Cosatu and the Sunday Times have been brought together in a shared conviction, Mbeki argued, that the ANC ”has allowed itself to be transformed into a ravenous monster controlled by individuals dedicated to the pursuit of personal wealth by a well-connected elite”. — I-Net Bridge