At first, there could be no mention of the ”C” word. Not Crime, but Corruption. To talk of it was to commit an act of irredeemable political incorrectness: this was the mid-Nineties and the heady heyday of the Mandela era — the democratic liberators, paragon of all virtue — masking the less congenial strands of the ANC’s diverse underground history.
Meanwhile, corruption was hurtling up the international policy agenda and South Africa was compelled to begin to align its own legal framework lest it appear backward and complacent. Months into his first term as president, Thabo Mbeki delivered the opening speech at the 1999 International Anti-corruption Conference in Durban. As if written by an intern, it began with an Oxford English Dictionary definition of corruption and proceeded to go from bad to worse.
Most of the international experts assembled in the sparkling new convention centre were alarmed by the simplistic analysis. It was plain that this C-word had yet to penetrate the cerebral cortex of the philosopher president.
Yet, away from the rhetorical platitudes of the growing global anti-corruption industry, Mbeki was busy presiding over a staggeringly cynical abuse of power: the arms deal. As information emerged of the improprieties in the tendering processes, and the cost to the fiscus escalated, it became clear that it was presenting the new South Africa with the perfect litmus test of its democratic accountability.
It failed the test. By the end of the joint investigation, as many questions remained unanswered as had been answered. Individual and collective undetected acts of corruption continued to fester, eating away at the probity of the government and, worst of all, sowing the seed of a dangerous idea: the idea that you could commit a serious act of corruption and get away with it or, even worse, that it does not matter.
It would be silly to say that the emergent model of crony, cowboy capitalism that pulses ever more arrogantly through the veins of Johannesburg was spawned by any one thing. But, equally, it would foolish to deny the impact on social values that the arms deal had. It helped set a tone and a false standard: that unless you are found guilty of a criminal offence, you are perfectly free to hold public or private office.
What arrant nonsense! The law is but one strand of the ethical framework that a society creates for itself, and in this we have lost our compass. A society gets the level of corruption that it is willing to tolerate and, thereby, the level of corruption that it deserves.
Well, now is the time for serious action; the time for political correctness about this has long gone. South Africa is moving rapidly towards ethical mayhem. The evidence from Latin America, Asia and elsewhere in Africa is that, once you are on it, it is a very slippery slope indeed.
Not untypically, Mbeki chose last weekend to tilt at the windmill of Tony Blair’s ”hypocrisy” in blocking the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into the British Aerospace corruption in Saudi Arabia in the ”national interest” while persisting with the South Africa investigation. Of course, Blair’s decision is outrageous; that is why the SFO is challenging it in court. They are a tough bunch and Blair is politically vulnerable. The SFO means business and Mbeki must know as much.
So next Friday, when Mbeki gives his State of the Nation address, he should abandon the technocratic language of the CEO of government that he tends to prefer to liberate the language of values and ethics that got a surprise, but welcome airing last winter at the Nelson Mandela lecture.
He must speak of both ”C”s — corruption and crime — and convince the nation that he cares about both. He must confirm that his government will give the SFO all the cooperation it needs to complete its investigation — in our national interest — and announce that during this parliamentary session the ANC will finally table legislation requiring political parties and donors to disclose their donations, as it promised the High Court two years ago.
Don’t hold your breath. Tragically, the ANC leadership appears paralysed as a sea of sleaze laps against its putrid underbelly. Mbeki is the president of the ANC as well as the country. The buck stops with him there, too; what legacy does he wish to leave behind? Secret donations to the ANC underwrote the arms deal; secret donations continue to oil the wheels of many government contracts. We are not unique. The question is: are we ordinary? Or can South Africa muster the resolve to be once again extraordinary?