MAKHUDU SEFARA | Mastering the art of cleaning Ramaphosa’s image

The timing of the release of a statement by the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) into Phala Phala was, from a public relations perspective, a work of art.

The Sarb decided to release its terribly worded statement just a day before the start of the Brics summit in Johannesburg aware, it would seem, that whatever noise about the report, whatever the disenchant, will and must be drowned out by the summit activities. It was a terse statement meant to assume insignificance within a day.

As the report was being released, our president Cyril Ramaphosa, a subject of the year-long probe, issued an injunction, effectively telling South Africans to behave ahead of the summit.

On the surface, it’s difficult to fault him because his chief role, as president, is to be the country’s chief salesman. With the calibre of important guests coming to our country, it’s his principal task to make sure our country puts its best foot forward. Yet it is hard not to think about how self-serving his appeal, in light of the Sarb’s Phala Phala whitewash, was.

It is possible though that the bright sparks at the Sarb were simply oblivious, took no interest in Brics and that their timing was purely accidental. Okay, okay, okay, I am really stretching this fairness thing! There’s just no way. They knew exactly what the timing was meant to achieve. To lull us into acquiescence. They will protest to the contrary. But the more they do, the more guilty they will look.

It’s one thing to release a flawed report, but another to deliberately use language meant to impede understanding. It makes the subterfuge plain. When they wrote that the transaction was not “perfected”, knowing that this is not normal language and that this was not a report for chief economists, it was clear they hoped not to be understood. It’s a great pity that an institution like the Sarb, one of the few that still commands respect in our troubled country, had to be used this way.

But who is surprised?

There is no chance in hell the police will find anything wrong with what Ramaphosa did. It’s just inconceivable that there is an officer and his bosses within the SAPS who has balls to say a sitting president should be indicted.

What were the odds, if you think about it, of the Sarb forcing the ANC to find a new leader with less than twelve months before the next elections? Politically, if the Sarb found that the transaction was perfected, to normalise their language, it would have meant that the ANC needed to discuss whether Paul Mashatile, Ramaphosa’s eager-beaver deputy, is the man to lead the party into the next elections or not. A massive political storm given the fissures within the party.

But the Sarb chose a convenient, unsurprising way out. It’s the same path chosen by the acting public protector, Kholeka Gcaleka, who had a tough time defending her whitewashed report into Phala Phala too. At this rate, the country is running out of washing powder!

Next up to do the whitewashing is the Hawks boss Godfrey Lebeya, who, soon, must tell the nation if his investigators have found traces of criminality in the mess that is Phala Phala.

We all know how committed the Hawks are to their work, right? They may not know where to start with their investigations into Steinhoff, for example. Oh, Lord, such complexity! A case of fraud involving billions which, to the Hawks’ surprise, is being properly investigated by German counterparts who have now issued an arrest warrant for Markus Jooste whose finance chief Dirk Schreiber was this week handed a three-year jail term. Our Hawks, meanwhile, will succeed where the public protector and the Sarb failed, right?

Well, again, there’s just no way!

There is no chance in hell the police will find anything wrong with what Ramaphosa did. It’s just inconceivable that there is an officer and his bosses within the SAPS who has balls to say a sitting president should be indicted.

Our police, I know, are yet to make a pronouncement on whether their criminal investigation has yielded anything, but, like our friend from the land of the free, ambassador Reuben Brigety, I must say “I bet my life on the accuracy of that assertion”. It is inconceivable that the SAPS will find the courage to run against the current.

Our police and prosecutors, even with evidence screaming at them in the arms deal case against former president Jacob Zuma, dropped charges against him as soon as he won ANC party elections in Polokwane in December 2007. The charges were reinstated after he served two five-year terms as president after a painstakingly slow legal process of review.

So do not hold your breath. The process to clean up Ramaphosa’s image ahead of the important elections next year is truly under way. The PR merchants are hard at work. The Sarb needed to find a technical term to get him off the hook. The day before the start of what arguably will be the biggest summit held in our country seemed perfect. And they, so to put it, “perfected” the stratagem to whitewash this saga.

And of course, the police will follow suit before the elections. That’s the art of cleaning up after powerful figures.