The business interests of government officials pose the biggest threat to President Jacob Zuma’s administration, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warned this week.
If the ruling party does not take a tough stance on this, “we will be en route to Zimbabwe and other failed revolutions elsewhere in the world”, the labour federation said.
The intersection of public service and private business interests is addressed in a 97-page document Cosatu tabled in a meeting with the ANC this week. The meeting was called to resolve recent public spats between the two organisations.
Cosatu demanded that the ANC force Cabinet ministers and senior government officials who hold business interests to resign from public office.
The Mail & Guardian reported last year that 27 ministers and deputies in Zuma’s executive were registered as active directors or members of 184 companies and close corporations. They included:
- Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda;
- Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka;
- Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale;
- Public Enterprises Deputy Minister Enoch Godongwana;
- International Relations Deputy Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim;
- Correctional Services Deputy Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize; and
- Rural Development Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla.
Many resigned as directors soon after their government appointments but remained shareholders.
Last year the Auditor General’s report revealed that more than 2 000 government officials were doing business directly with the government and had directly or indirectly benefited from government tenders worth more than R600-million.
“It is frightening to observe the speed with which the election to a position is seen to be the creation of an opportunity for wealth accumulation,” Cosatu said in its document.
“Our biggest concern is that some government leaders are also business leaders. Even if they are not benefiting directly from government tenders, the danger always exists that in taking decisions and in formulating policy they will be guided by the impact this will have on their businesses rather than the broader public interest.
“The temptation is just too big to resist for a people’s representative not to use political power to advance private commercial interests. It is the biggest threat to our efforts to establish a transparent and corrupt[ion]-free government.
“It is not good enough for ministers and public officials to hide behind the argument that they have declared an interest in the companies they and their families own. The fact that they are in business to make money creates an inevitable conflict of interest when they are legislating in Parliament, a provincial legislature or municipal council.
“All public representatives must be forced to choose whether they are servants of the public or in business to make profits. They cannot be both at the same time.”
‘Incomprehensible’
But the ANC said Cosatu was trying to create the impression that the ANC was inherently corrupt and anti-worker.
“Our observation is that sometimes the federation joins the chorus of accusing individual comrades of corruption too easily without even taking the trouble of validating the accusations,” the party said in its document at the meeting.
“This is understandable when the opposition does it, but is incomprehensible when an ally advocates it,” the document said.
Cosatu said it was disturbing to see how resources intended for the public good were being diverted to individuals’ pockets, which robbed the poor of much-needed basic services.
“Opportunities that should accrue to those who truly deserve them are monopolised by a handful of people who control budgets in departments and state agencies,” the federation said in its document.
Cosatu also said ministers’ car allowances — which have cost taxpayers more than R40-million since Zuma’s administration was formed — should have been “handled sensitively”.
“Spending so much money on vehicles is to spit in the face of poor people living in shantytowns. This is what gives politics a bad name; it is conceived as a stepping stone to easy and quick wealth,” Cosatu said.
“If political positions are seen as the means to enrich oneself, it is little surprise that comrades murder each other to win positions since these positions have become a stepping stone to resources.
“The politics of patronage have destroyed the self-sacrificing and service ethic that characterised the movement for decades. It is a cancer eating slowly at all components of the mass democratic movement, from branch to national level,” said Cosatu.