Over the past half-decade, the competence of Dudu Myeni has often been questioned. In May 2020, the Pretoria High Court even went so far as to ban her for life from holding any directorships. But on Thursday, she showed a flash of the old brilliance that made her one of Jacob Zuma’s nearest and dearest.
Back then, it seemed that the world was her oyster, or at least an oyster that she was trying to rent for SAA, without the board’s approval, allegedly through a third party. She could apparently do no wrong, and rumours flew that she had a special place in Zuma’s affections.
Indeed, it must have taken considerable courage for six non-executive SAA directors to write to Malusi Gigaba in 2014, complaining of their “major dissatisfaction” with her leadership. Then again, maybe they were desperate: you know things are bad when you’re willing to complain to one of the president’s most loyal puppets about the same president’s bestie, all while said president is at the height of his sun-king powers.
In the past two or three years, however, Myeni had disappeared from the spotlight, perhaps because the spotlight had been sold to a scrap dealer from Dubai by some minor Zupta functionary.
Indeed, it was such a great performance that it knocked the wind out of Justice Zondo.
But this week she was back, staring inscrutably into her laptop’s camera as she explained to justice Zondo that she couldn’t utter a single syllable lest it implicate her. Taking the Fifth is one thing, but this week Myeni took the Fourth and Sixth too, just in case.
The highlight of her performance, however, was without a doubt Thursday’s “accidental” revelation of the identity of Mr X, a Zondo commission witness, which she delivered with the self-righteous frustration and faux surprise of a practised gaslighter who does something indefensible and then cries: “Now look what you’ve made me do!”
Indeed, it was such a great performance that it knocked the wind out of Zondo, who had to adjourn for lunch, perhaps to listen to the transcript and confirm that Myeni really had shown him and the commission such remarkable contempt.
Then again, perhaps Myeni, coming as she does from the Zuma world, where everybody knows everybody, simply assumed that everyone knew who Mr X was. And it’s not exactly a state secret. As online polymath Khaya Sithole reminded us on Twitter: “Hint – if you want to keep someone’s identity secret, you probably shouldn’t emphasise that he’s the only director of a company whose name is then mentioned in open evidence.”
Still, it was a fairly shocking breach of protocol, and will have a supremely dampening effect on any future witnesses and whistle-blowers – which was no doubt Myeni’s intention from the outset.
The Zondo commission is frustratingly slow, and seems to be oddly toothless. But when I think back to Nasrec in 2017, and how easily things might have gone differently, I’ll gladly take slow and toothless over lightning quick and red-fanged. Because if the Zuptas were now in control, Dudu Myeni would probably be appointing judges, not trying to avoid them.
And that, at least, feels a little like progress.
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