It was a rare moment of decisiveness from President Jacob Zuma as he finally reacted to the terrible mess prosecutions boss Menzi Simelane has got himself and the National Prosecuting Authority into.
Simelane’s cack-handed restructuring of the NPA’s specialised units has been severely damaging to crucial components of the prosecutions architecture and he has pushed on with it despite an injunction from Justice Minister Jeff Radebe to cease. Now Zuma has publicly intervened and told Simelane to put his plans on hold until Cabinet takes a final decision.
For this the president must be applauded. Since his appointment in December, Simelane has been allowed to treat the NPA as though it is his personal management experiment, rather than a key institution of state.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Menzi Simelane is not a fit and proper person to be our national director of public prosecutions.
The file of evidence against him keeps getting thicker. This week we report how he lied about his removal of prosecutor Gerrie Nel and his team from the Brett Kebble murder case and the prosecution of former crime intelligence boss Mulangi Mphego on a charge of defeating the ends of justice.
It is bad enough that a state official and an advocate be caught out in serious untruth, but it’s even worse than that. The abrupt removal of Nel directly caused the Mphego matter to be struck from the roll and serious questions remain about whether a new prosecuting team will be ready to conduct the massively complex Kebble case come July.
Simelane has now interfered in at least three prosecutions, each time going against the opinion of seasoned prosecutors conducting those cases.
In the preservation case of arms deal playboy Fana Hlongwane’s money stashed in far-off Lichtenstein, Simelane acted in direct conflict with the advice of senior prosecutors who have been working on the case for a decade.
And in the bail application of hip-hopper Jub Jub, Simelane instructed a very experienced prosecutor not to oppose bail. The prosecutor declined and was demoted a few days later.
After a public outcry — including that of angry ANC MPs — Simelane reversed his decision that would have seen other seasoned prosecutors also being sent to lower courts.
The next windmill Simelane stormed was the NPA’s hugely successful specialised units. This has now been stopped by Zuma — the person who appointed him in the first place.
There is still reason for concern, however. Zuma has put the restructuring on hold pending Cabinet consultations. These must not be used to provide Simelane with the cover of consultation for the destruction he seems intent on wreaking. Zuma must ensure that the outcome draws on the strengths of the specialised units, and of the skilled men and women who are making the NPA work, rather than undermining them.
But he should go further. Zuma must stop Simelane from further damaging an already fragile criminal justice system, and the best start would be for him to dismiss his attorney general and appoint someone who understands the value of the truth, and of the institution he is responsible for.
Fishing for state cash
While attention this week was focused on the disciplinary sanctions against Julius Malema, and a rather pointless debate about whether he or President Jacob Zuma had ‘wonâ€, the real battle for South Africa continued almost unheeded.
As we have reported in recent weeks, the Gupta family, close associates of the president and patrons of his children, increasingly feature in questionable deals that require state backing, from mines to a proposed newspaper.
This week we report on the Guptas’ and Duduzane Zuma’s involvement in yet another strategic mining deal, and allegations that Zuma himself
intervened to help it along. The asset in question is the troubled Dominion uranium mine, which is not worth much in its present condition, but which stands to become a valuable bargaining chip in negotiations around the expansion of Eskom’s nuclear capacity.
That won’t happen without massive investment and, with the private sector not showing adequate enthusiasm, the Gupta-Zuma consortium is fishing for state cash, whether from the Public Investment Corporation, the Industrial Development Corporation or the Development Bank of South Africa.
The PIC has far too often been an instrument of state policy and of crony enrichment, rather than a mechanism to ensure the coffers of the Government Employees Pension fund are well stocked. And the timing of Zuma’s intervention to keep its boss, Brian Molefe, in his job just as his friends and son were shopping for state funding looks deeply suspicious, whether the PIC ends up getting involved or not.
And this is what we mean by the real fight: it is not a spat between this flavour or that of rentier capitalist, but a battle between those who think the state and the broader economy are there for the looting, and those who know a better life for all can flow only from transparency and good governance.
With Zuma’s friends and family up to their necks in muck, it’s increasingly clear which side he is on.