The renewal of the ANC is essentially a renewal of South African society. (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In 1993 I was visiting Standard House in Port Elizabeth, the Eastern Cape regional headquarters of the ANC. I had just learnt that some young comrades in the New Brighton township had been arrested by the police. They had been toyi-toying in the street when they noticed a car with a white driver and passengers. They had surrounded the car and began rocking it from side to side. The police intervened and arrested as many of the protesters as they could.
While at Standard House, I saw Necba Faku, who was the then ANC regional organiser — he would later become Port Elizabeth’s first democratically elected mayor — and told him about the comrades’ plight, hoping that he would get the ANC to intervene on their behalf. His response shocked me. He replied, “Who told them to do this? Was it the ANC? We did not, so why should the ANC now intervene, when they did something the ANC knew nothing about and now that they are in trouble, they expect the ANC to come to their rescue.”
I was disappointed by Faku’s heartless response. Many of us in the 1980s took up the struggle against apartheid without the ANC’s permission. It seemed to me that the ANC was disowning its supporters and activists.
But I later realised that I was wrong, and Faku was correct. The ANC cannot and should not take responsibility for the actions of individuals. These people did not approach the ANC to inform them of their intentions. But when the proverbial “crap hits the fan” then the ANC is expected to clean up the mess.
Nearly every day or week we read of someone from the ANC, or associated with it, being accused of benefiting from government tenders, through shell companies or their relatives. And the ANC has to answer questions about why it has not taken action against them. We recently read stories about the deputy president, Paul Mashatile. They read like a soap opera, covering jilted lovers, surreptitious benefits from companies led by notorious individuals and tenders received by close family members. These reports, like the many others relating to ANC-associated individuals, reinforce the narrative of a corrupt party that is now a criminal enterprise.
The ANC does itself no favours when it tries to answer why it has taken no action against leaders who may have had their hands in the cookie jar. Why is the ANC answering? The ANC has instructed no one to live in these million rand mansions. Shouldn’t the ANC imitate Nceba Faku, and simply say that these individuals must answer for themselves? And if they have been found to have broken the law, the law should take its course. The ANC can only act according to its constitution. It cannot act based on newspaper articles; it can only act if it is formally informed of bad behaviour of its members or deployees.
Frank Chikane, the recently appointed chair of the ANC’s integrity commission, has his work cut out for him. He is a very able individual, who established an efficient presidency and cabinet system while in government. We hope he will be able to establish a transparent and effective system for the integrity commission to operate within. But I doubt that as capable as Chikane is, that the ANC will be able to investigate every allegation made in the media. It will end up chasing its tail. The commission should only investigate those cases that have been formally put to them, and those investigations must be done in conjunction with the appropriate government agencies.
ANC members must have the courage of their convictions and snap out of their factional groups. They need to formally approach the integrity commission to investigate matters, if they find newspaper articles believable. At the same time, those accused cannot call themselves leaders, and simply take no responsibility when there are allegations in the public space. They need to explain themselves in the public as individuals. And if anyone has taken advantage of their position — like the deputy president’s protection unit who allegedly beat up people on the highway — there should be a call for action to be immediately taken against them, as opposed to saying that they had nothing to do with it.
As much as the Democratic Alliance tries to paint the ANC deployment committee as some kind of latter-day Broederbond, where the ANC leaders sit in official meetings divvying up government largesse, many South Africans know that the party does not operate like that.
The problem is not just that the ANC tries to answer for their comrades who are exposed in the media, but more times than not, the ANC comes across as if it is trying to defend them. It seems as if the party is afraid of being accused of throwing their comrades under the bus. This only results in speculation that they are also guilty of the same behaviour that their comrade is being accused of, it’s just that no one is reporting it as yet.
The renewal of the ANC is essentially a renewal of South African society. We have become a society where all is fair in love and war, as long as you do not get caught. The elite in our country have used the greed among individuals in the ANC to excuse their own low standards of morality and integrity. Every sector in South Africa has become corrupted in one way or another. Blue chip private sector companies in the construction and banking industry and places of worship are not immune.
As South Africans we need to renew our society, not just the ANC.
And we — and the media — must call them out. We cannot be afraid that they are too powerful.
Corruption is like the rain, you can’t dodge it. As Eeyore, the inimitable donkey in the Winnie the Pooh stories, says: “The nicest thing about the rain is that it always stops. Eventually.”
Our country can move forward, and we can move it.
Donovan Williams is a social commentator.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.