JUSTICE MALALA | We want transparency, not Zuma-like smoke and mirrors

It was inevitable that a wave of euphoria would sweep over South Africa in February 2018 when President Cyril Ramaphosa took over the reins from his scandal-soaked and captured comrade, Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa explicitly positioned himself as the antithesis of the man from Nkandla.

Labelling Zuma’s tenure as “the nine wasted years”, Ramaphosa explicitly indicated that he would deliver on his party’s policies and promises. He promised that the years of endless scandals were over, and an era of clean governance was afoot. He cast himself as the light (promising a “new dawn”) as opposed to the long and dark night of the Zuma years.

Five years later, the euphoria has been replaced by trepidation and doubt (among Ramaphosa’s ANC supporters) and despair among many ordinary citizens who believed in Ramaphosa’s new-era dictum. Where is the decisive leader of 2018? Where is the young man who was the ANC’s negotiator-in-chief in the 1990s, deftly bringing home the 1994 election and the constitution born of that democratic breakthrough?

It became clear around 2020 that Ramaphosa seemed more concerned with keeping the ANC united than in ridding South Africa of many of its corrupt leaders. However, one forgave him these sins because he was forging ahead with reforming institutions such as the SA Revenue Service, the National Prosecuting Authority and state-owned enterprises such as Eskom. Since the Phala Phala scandal, however, the man has seemed to falter even more than he had done before May 2022.

Since then, he has seemed to find succour and solace in the kinds of strategy and tactics that the Zuma administration was notorious for — secrecy, obfuscation, lack of transparency and hiding behind rules and regulations that have no place in an open society.

Now, we all have our views on this administration. To my mind, even with the stakes so high, if Ramaphosa fails to fix the myriad problems the country faces that’s fine — we will vote others in and move on. We will remember him as the man who failed the great challenge to turn our economy around.

Ramaphosa might as well just personally write a note saying no arms were loaded onto the Lady R. In truth, this announcement merely underlines what many of us have long suspected: we sold arms to Russia so that it can continue killing Ukrainians.

What would be tragic is if Ramaphosa turned the country towards a securocrat state. That would be a tragedy because the man who ousted Zuma would have ultimately turned into a Zuma. The country does not need that at all. Never, never and never again should the free democracy of South Africa experience the leadership of a man who wants to undermine the tenets of that same democracy.

Let me use an example to illustrate my point. Last week KwaZulu- Natal judges Gregory Kruger, Jacqui Henriques and Thokozile Masipa dismissed Zuma’s private prosecution against journalist Karyn Maughan and state advocate Billy Downer, in which the former president accused them of breaching the National Prosecuting Authority Act. Zuma claimed Downer had supplied Maughan with his personal medical information during his corruption trial.

First, it was all lies. Downer did no such thing. Second, and most importantly, the entire thing was an attempt to stop Maughan from reporting — as she has done — bravely and assiduously on Zuma and his criminal trials. The judges said Zuma’s private prosecution was an abuse of process and that he came to the court with “unclean hands”.

It tells you everything about this man. He is an enemy of independent media and free expression. It explains why, under him, the ANC pushed to introduce gag laws. He is a man who will do anything to undermine the principles of an open society and a free press.

Fast forward to just nine days ago when Ramaphosa’s office said that the report of the inquiry into whether arms were loaded onto the Russian ship Lady R in Simon’s Town in December will not be made public. TimesLIVE reported that the presidency said the inquiry’s “terms of reference will not be published. Its work will not be public. It has no power under the Commissions Act to summons witnesses or documents”.

Why have an inquiry when we, the people, cannot even know what parameters it operates under? Why appoint an inquiry that cannot summons witnesses? Why announce it at all when nothing about it will be open and transparent? Ramaphosa might as well just personally write a note saying no arms were loaded onto the Lady R. In truth, this announcement merely underlines what many of us have long suspected: we sold arms to Russia so that it can continue killing Ukrainians.

I would have expected this kind of behaviour under the Zuma administration. Now, with this announcement, Ramaphosa has aligned himself with the likes of Zuma and others who seek the darkness and avoid the light of transparency in an open democracy.

This is a tragedy. The man who started out as the antithesis of Zuma is now behaving in the securocratic, unconstitutional, opaque manner of his predecessor.

Do better, Cyril. It’s OK to fail at the job. But don’t turn into the thing you most wanted to get rid of, and that’s the transparency-hating JG Zuma.