The raid on Tuesday at the Johannesburg home of parliamentary speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, which was linked to investigations into allegations that she received about R2.3m in cash bribes, makes the continuation of her position as a leader of the legislature untenable.
Investigators linked to the National Prosecuting Authority spent more than five hours searching for evidence at her mountain-top house, east of Johannesburg.
This follows claims by a businesswoman, Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, that she made numerous cash disbursements at the insistence of Mapisa-Nqakula when she served the country as a minister of defence.
The police activities at her home meant she could not preside over the president’s question and answer session in parliament as she needed to focus on saving her own skin.
Lifestyle audits promise
With election season under way, opposition parliamentarians made a meal of the raid, reminding President Cyril Ramaphosa of a broken promise he made five years ago — just before the last polls — that he would introduce lifestyle audits.
"Your failure to implement lifestyle audits is what has facilitated this alleged corruption by the speaker,” said Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen.
Ramaphosa responded: “Any member of the executive who will have been found to have mismanaged the funds of the state must face the consequences. That has to be the case. Those who participate in activities that go against the ethics that are required must face consequences and that is something I am clear on.”
To insist she must first be charged, as ANC members are wont of doing, is to drag the institution of parliament into her murky world.
Mapisa-Nqakula became fodder for political parties left with just more than two months to showcase themselves as the best custodians of the interests of the people, as enjoined by the constitution.
No doubt a lot of opportunism came into play.
While it’s possible Mapisa-Nqaku may eventually win whatever case the police and prosecutors are stitching together, the fact that it was her home, and not the homes of the other 489 members of parliament that was raided, tells a sordid story already.
Credibility crisis
Parliament, as an institution, suffers a credibility crisis in the eyes of ordinary people just weeks before elections. Its image has, for the past five years, been sullied by revelations of corruption against some members including Bongani Bongo and Vincent Smith to name just two.
It has crafted for itself an image as a home for people without much regard for the law when the constitution enjoins it to be guardians of society through legislative powers. Mapisa-Nqakula, speaking for the first time on the claims against her, said through her spokesperson she “steadfastly upholds her strong conviction of innocence, and reaffirms that she has nothing to hide”. Great. But it sadly is not enough.
Were she possessed of the will not to sully an already muddied but important institution of our democracy, Mapisa-Nqakula would have in the same communication told the nation she would step down to allow her shenanigans to unfold without tainting parliament.
It is what ethical leaders would do. To insist she must first be charged, as ANC members are wont of doing, is to drag the institution of parliament into her murky world.
The spokesperson of parliament, Moloto Mothapo, for example, has no business answering questions about the speaker’s private affairs. She must answer for herself since she allegedly received the bribes, euphemistically termed “wigs” or “muthi”, on her own.
Ramaphosa, if he is indeed committed to ferreting out the frauds, the corrupt and the unethical in his administration, will ask her nicely to step down. The ANC too, if it cares about how the electorate views its leaders, often called “amasela (thieves)”, will find the balls to remove her as quickly as possible.
Whether they call it step aside or doing what’s right for Nelson Mandela’s party doesn’t matter. It’s about reading the room in these last weeks before the elections.
There is often no confluence between knowing the right thing and doing it. A proper analysis of ANC politics means she will not be removed, but that doesn’t make it any less appropriate in the circumstances. When votes are counted soon, they will reflect both what was done and decisions not taken by the so-called leader of society.
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