SONGEZO ZIBI | If farmgate proves anything, it’s that the entire ANC is unfit to govern SA

In a country that continuously rains corruption scandals, it is nearly impossible to pinpoint one that’s determinative. However, the one involving a burglary at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm may yet be definitive. It aptly demonstrates why South Africans need to move beyond the ANC and its satellites, which include opposition political parties born of its factionalism.

The complainant, Arthur Fraser, is no paragon of virtue. In his pitiful professional life, which, to our detriment, has been in the public service, he has been mired in a series of political and corruption scandals. He has never convinced anyone with a modicum of moral rectitude that he should be trusted.

His last incarnation as director-general of correctional services demonstrated one of Ramaphosa’s many instances of vacillation and poor judgment in the name of party unity. After the release of yet another devastating report detailing why Fraser is untrustworthy, the president made a futile attempt to explain why a man of such character should be entrusted with such a powerful position.

Fraser’s move is not altruistic. It is part of the battle between the ANC’s factions in trying to show the public that one is more corrupt than the other. In this case, it is particularly important that Ramaphosa is also shown to be corrupt.

First, this strategy is emblematic of how removed from the moral compass ANC leaders and members are. In a post-2021 and Digital Vibes world, they appear to think that after all of the revelations voters will continue to trust them to run the country and deliver on the hopes of millions. It would be laughable were it not so tragic, but here we are.

Second, as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) continues to move against high-profile perpetrators of corruption, with the fear of prosecution and imprisonment for the ANC’s corrupt elites becoming more real. Only the removal of the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP) and her replacement by a person of questionable character would ensure continuing impunity for them and, therefore, unity within the party.

South Africans must not allow themselves to be fooled. Every politician who originates from the ANC’s axis, whether they are inside or outside the party, and has gripes about the Zondo commission or the NPA, does so because they want to remain unaccountable.

In our statutes such a task can only be undertaken by the president and as such involves bogus allegations of unfitness to hold office, such as happened to the upstanding Vusi Pikoli more than a decade ago when the ANC wanted to make former president Jacob Zuma and other members untouchable. Ramaphosa is a problem to a section of his party because he is unwilling to repeat what happened after the 2007 Polokwane conference — to weaken NPA and police capacity to fight corruption.

South Africans must not allow themselves to be fooled. Every politician who originates from the ANC’s axis, whether they are inside or outside the party, and has gripes about the Zondo commission or the NPA, does so because they want to remain unaccountable. These parasites have amassed unexplained, often hidden and laundered wealth by sucking the public purse dry while the poor they claim to represent continue to lose hope and go to bed hungry.

That said, Ramaphosa must not be let off the hook. It is he who has tap-danced for years to preserve the unity of his party which, if the US’s Racketeer Influenced Criminal Organization (RICO) statute were in place here, would be regarded as a sprawling criminal enterprise. He and other party leaders know this, with Gwede Mantashe publicly lamenting a few weeks ago how ANC members engage in unbridled theft of public funds, “unlike whites who used to only take 5%”.

The head of the Presidential Protection Unit, Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode, is also an astonishing choice for such a critical position. In 2011 he was charged in relation to a R19m NPA tender. Three years later the case was dropped after a key witness died. He was brought into his current role at the rank of major-general despite not having security clearance.

It seems that despite his vow to clean up the public service, Ramaphosa was only too happy to have Rhoode as his close protector. It is a screaming contradiction that requires urgent explanation and action, not deflective statements in front of party faithful who will cheer even if he burped in response to the issue.

Instead of properly explaining what happened on his farm, Ramaphosa has deflected by saying he “never stole public funds”. I do not recall anyone saying he did. The questions the president needs to answer are different and their answers do not need to wait for the completion of a police investigation he never wanted to begin with.

He must account because the role of president requires a relationship of trust between himself or herself and the South African people. Trust cannot be achieved when answers to compelling issues are not forthcoming. In turn, this affects his ability to exercise the enormous public power that comes with the role and for which he needs the voluntary submission of the country.

However Ramaphosa responds to the issue, one thing is clear: it is unreasonable to expect the ANC, whoever its president may be, to be the answer to corruption and impunity in SA.

The public deserves to know why no official complaint about the burglary was laid with the police. At this rate we can only speculate that it was out of fear of embarrassment that SA is so unsafe that even a heavily guarded presidential farm is not immune to the crime that torments South Africans every day. Alternatively, the stolen cash was the proceeds of crime and criminals deal with such incidents “in their own way” instead of involving the police.

We deserve to know which of the two, or any other reason, was involved here.

There is also no impediment to telling us whether the figure of $4m is accurate or not. Whatever the amount was, was the cash held in full compliance with applicable foreign exchange control regulations? It is not good enough for the president to expect us to deduce from an opaque statement that the farm is a commercial entity that we must assume is compliant. Such an expectation is arrogant and unbefitting of a president who wishes to be remembered as the champion who returned accountability to South African political life.

However Ramaphosa responds to the issue, one thing is clear: it is unreasonable to expect the ANC, whoever its president may be, to be the answer to corruption and impunity in SA. At every turn we have to waste hours of radio time and newspaper space to explain things that should need no explanation, and get answers we should be getting as a matter of democratic course.

Personally, I am no longer interested in what Ramaphosa or any of his comrades have to say on this issue. He lost my attention when he issued two statements which contained a lot of words, but told me nothing enlightening. Like the rest of his party, he is exhausting in making us fight for answers we deserve.

Instead, we need to work towards electoral outcomes in 2024 that will ensure he, the likes of Fraser and the many externalised factions of the ANC have their battles outside the levers of state power. We cannot expect them to fight one another and fix our urgent problems at the same time.

Time and again they have shown us they can’t.