Mduduzi Manana has no business continuing to serve in the government as deputy minister of higher education. He should have stepped down immediately from his post and as an MP.
His failure to do so last Sunday - and in the days that followed - despite having admitted to the crime of assaulting a woman, should have prompted his boss, President Jacob Zuma, to fire him on the spot.
But in typical Zuma fashion, the president has failed to take action, with his office saying only that he had held a meeting with the disgraced deputy minister at which Zuma "instructed" Manana to "co-operate fully with law enforcement agencies as no one is above the law".
Zuma's spin doctors in the ANC and the government would like us to believe that he is hamstrung by the fact that Manana refuses to do the honourable thing by falling on his sword.But we all know that Zuma has the prerogative to hire and fire ministers and their deputies and has had no difficulty to do so, especially when it came to those he saw as political opponents.
Herein, perhaps, lies the problem. Manana, even though he now and again toys around with the idea of backing those opposed to the president in the ANC, is a useful foot soldier of the Zuma faction. He is from Mpumalanga, a province Zuma is trying hard not to alienate in the run-up to the ANC national conference in December, at which the president hopes that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will get the nod as his successor.
With his family said to be close to Mpumalanga strongman David Mabuza, Manana is clearly an asset to the Zuma camp. This also explains Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini's shocking stance on the issue.
Dlamini is the ANC Women's League president. Although her organisation professes to be a champion for women's rights, she flatly refuses to call for Manana's head. She, too, is in the Zuma camp and a leading figure in the campaign to have Dlamini-Zuma elected.It is an indictment of the government and the ruling party that short-term political consideration should trounce the government's stated objective to end women abuse in our society.
It makes a mockery of Zuma's remarks during his Women's Day speech, in which he said: "We wish to emphasise that nobody is above the law when it comes to crimes against women. All persons, regardless of position in society, must face the full might of the law when they attack women and children."
Mere hours after he said this, we saw Manana being given preferential treatment by the police as they avoided arresting him - choosing instead to "invite" him to appear in court where he was granted a paltry R5,000 bail.
At a party political level, the Manana affair also brings into question the relevance of the integrity committee the ANC set up a few years ago with much fanfare. After years of the public accusing the ruling party of being soft on corruption and general wrongdoing, it created the committee to act promptly against those accused of wrongdoing without first waiting on the courts to pronounce on their guilt or innocence.
Yet in Manana's case, even with the deputy minister openly admitting that he assaulted the woman, the integrity committee has not uttered a word - not to mention calling on him to step down...