The opening of the gleaming glass and steel ANC provincial head offices in Limpopo this past weekend got President Jacob Zuma thinking. Maybe it’s time for some new national headquarters. After all, getting funding for it would be as easy as writing a cheque.
“Business people must say to the treasurer general [Mathews Phosa]: Here is my chequebook, take only one leaf from it. Write any amount you like, but it mustn’t be more than six figures. And in just one round, we will be able to build a new national office,” he told the 300-strong audience of Limpopo’s political elite who gathered around the new R40-million Frans Mohlala House last Friday.
Zuma was so impressed with the new offices — which have already been dubbed Luthuli House II by locals — that he appealed there and then to business people to fund a new national headquarters, despite the recent renovation of Luthuli House proper in Sauer Street, Johannesburg.
Edifice envy wasn’t just limited to Zuma. It oozed from other out-of-province cadres. Zuma relayed to the audience a comment from ANC national chairperson and former deputy president Baleka Mbete.
“[She] said that if you see the premier’s office, you want to take your own office [in Luthuli House] and give that to your PA,” he told the crowd to screeches of laughter.
Pomp and glamour
The ANC’s 99th birthday party weekend was celebrated with all the pomp and glamour Polokwane could muster.
Three years ago the Limpopo town was the field in which the ANC fought its first no-holds-barred battle for leadership between Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki. But it was also the place where the party had to come to terms with being seen by some as a vehicle for patronage and money, as well as a cosy home for tenderpreneurs.
Political analyst William Gumede said that at about the time of the 2007 Polokwane battle, it became clear that money was quickly becoming the most important part of politics in South Africa.
“It became much more open,” he told the Mail & Guardian this week. “Previously, you would have individuals responsible for funding the party, now there is a whole layer of people who do that.”
This layer, clad in designer suits and kitted out with Louis Vuitton handbags, appeared to be well-represented. And comments made by party leaders throughout the weekend made it clear: ANC business cadres are expected to give, whatever and whenever the party asks.
Zuma even boasted that when the Frans Mohlala building project started no one mentioned the need for a budget.
“If they first discussed: ‘Is there a budget?’, like we do in government, the building would never have been built.”
Indeed. Limpopo premier and ANC provincial chairperson Cassel Mathale was brimming with pride when he explained in detail how comrades of the rainbow nation came together, put the building up in 18 months and, in the end, the ANC didn’t have a single cent of debt to repay.
The land, he told the gathering, was a donation from a Limpopo comrade. The lighting came courtesy of an Indian comrade and tiling in the bathroom from a coloured comrade. The fire alarm? Operated by an Afrikaner woman who asked Mathale for an ANC membership card right after she got the contract.
‘People’s dinner’
But the mention of money in the ANC seems to be as strategic as it is blatant.
At the ANC gala dinner on Friday night ANC treasurer general Matthews Phosa told the well-heeled patrons at the Peter Mokaba Stadium that this was a “people’s dinner”.
“Despite this being an election year, we resisted the temptation to ask money from your good selves,” Phosa said. “This is a dinner to say thank you.”
The dinner was fully sponsored by, among others, Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals, Franschoek winery La Motte and the Chinese chapter of the Progressive Business Forum, affectionately known in political circles as rent-a-minister for its business model, which puts government ministers in touch with business people.
Although the cost of the Jack Daniels-soaked boerewors and marinated leg of lamb was covered, Phosa reminded patrons there was no such thing as a free dinner, implying that come election time the begging bowl may be coming around again.
And they are ready for it.
A Johannesburg businessman with ANC links recently explained that requests like Zuma’s for a new headquarters come with the territory of being a party cadre and a successful businessman at the same time.
Long-term benefits
“If it is a reasonable request, we will discuss it and decide whether we really need it and whether it has long-term benefits. And then we’ll give.”
But, he emphasised, while checking his constantly vibrating iPhone, businessmen are not a bottomless pit.
“Sometimes you say ‘yes’ and other times you say ‘no, sorry, I’m stretched to the limit’. It is the normal course of things and sometimes people are resentful when you say no.”
Do these business people have an obligation because the ruling party enabled them through opportunities and successful tenders or because they need to ensure the sustainability of the party?
“Both.”
Gumede said the ANC began to talk more openly about funding and the role of money in the party shortly after the dawn of democracy.
“In 1994 a lot of foreign money was given for the election campaign, but it wasn’t transparent. Previously, people were embarrassed to talk about money and defensive when they were asked about it. Now no one cares as much. It has become acceptable.”
Chancellor House
He said the increasingly open relationship between the party and business also stems from the involvement of vehicles like Chancellor House, an investment company that serves as the ANC’s cash cow.
While Gumede maintained that “all key leaders now dabble in money”, he said the situation has become dangerous because the state is seen as the only vehicle to empower cadres financially.
“These businesspeople think they owe the state and that’s why they give money. But it locks people into uncritical behaviour because they have no alternative financial security. So they always feel they have to give.”
Gumede offered the example of other developing nations, such as South Korea, in which the government invested in education, giving people skills to make them less dependent on the state.
But back home the current funding model is clearly understood by the ruling party and the business people who support it.
Just after the gala dinner, a Free State businessman unabashedly revealed his intentions in coming to Polokwane.
“I am in transport and there is a contract that the Free State government is planning which I want to get a hand in. An MEC friend of mine invited me along. I came to see who I can talk to here about that tender.”
He said he hopes to make enough money so that when a leaf from his cheque book is requested, he can happily oblige.