The three wise men bring a Christmas conundrum

Had he listened to better advice, Jacob Zuma would have been able to enjoy a peaceful holiday this year. Alas, this is not to be

WHEN President Jacob Zuma takes a holiday break at his always- expanding Nkandla homestead, will he consider this to have been a peachy year?

Will he cast his mind back on the fun he has had visiting foreign countries and being the head honcho in the Union Buildings and Luthuli House, or will he dread coming back to a pile of rather nasty and unfinished business?

I have a feeling our president might just wish he could stay in his rural enclave, where he has to consider only his wives and children.

The past few months - not to mention the entire year - have been a public relations nightmare for the man.

There have been the public protector's reports that forced Zuma to get rid of two ministers and place his national police commissioner on suspension.

There has been the attempt to expel Julius Malema from the ANC Youth League.

And in November Zuma had to announce that his government would not meet its job-creation target of five million new jobs by 2014 - despite boldly declaring 2011 as the year of the job.

Fortunately, for Zuma, the implosion of the eurozone has provided him with an escape clause on the job-creation front. He said last month: "When the government said it was going to create a particular number of jobs, we were discussing that matter in the face of global recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.

"Things have changed; we now have another financial crisis that affects everyone."

To be fair, we cannot really blame Zuma alone for this miscalculation. In this respect, at least, we can blame his entire government and the rest of the world.

Then there is this week's announcement that three provinces - including Gauteng, South Africa's economic heart - have messed up their governance and finances spectacularly.

In Johannesburg - home to the stock exchange and multiple corporate headquarters - we have witnessed the municipality's startling inability to perform the most basic of functions: the collection of rates and taxes from the city's residents.

The inability to run Gauteng, Limpopo and the Free State is largely the result of the ANC's insistence during the past 17 years on deploying cadres. At least this is another problem for which our president is not solely responsible.

But there are other problems that he cannot blame on the Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese, or an ANC-determined policy.

The buck stops with the man from Nkandla.

Michael Hulley, for instance, was intimately involved in what now appears to have been the systematic extraction of wealth from the rundown Aurora mines at the expense of its 5300 impoverished workers.

Instead of being left to feel the opprobrium of what can only be described as a cynical get-rich-quick scheme, Hulley was appointed as Zuma's part-time legal adviser. Can this be construed as anything but a crude attempt to reward Hulley for his role in getting the corruption charges against Zuma dropped through his "gift" of spy tapes?

A similar pattern runs through the appointment of Mac Maharaj as Zuma's chief spin doctor. How else can one justify the engagement of a pensioner's services to this important job, particularly someone who was so markedly shamed at the Hefer Commission as one of the chief architects of the apartheid-spy charges against Bulelani Ngcuka, the former national director of public prosecutions?

Last week it was Willem Heath's turn to feel the warmth of the president's gratitude with his return to the Special Investigating Unit at the age of 66 - a year older than the unit's stipulated retirement age.

And Heath - through an incredibly forceful and ill-considered attack on former president Thabo Mbeki - has managed to dump Zuma in a rather vulnerable space as far as the ANC is concerned.

Then there is the controversial hiring of Menzi Simelane as National Prosecuting Authority boss and last week's Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that declared his appointment invalid.

There is also the notable silence over the inquiry set up to investigate the misdeeds of suspended national police commissioner Bheki Cele. An article from late last month alluded that the board of inquiry was "taking formative steps ... meeting to receive important documents". In the meantime, Cele will continue to be paid his handsome R1.3-million-a-year salary.

And so we will end this year with many unanswered questions about the president's ability to make fundamental decisions with regards to hiring those who are meant to inhabit his inner circle.

Are people like Hulley, Maharaj and Heath the right men to provide wise counsel to the president as he prepares for the battle to save his political life, a battle that will end this time next year in Mangaung?

Come to think of it, I do not think the president will be having such a peaceful Christmas after all.