THANDISIZWE MGUDLWA
It will be the focus of many as to how the Ramaphosa Presidency deals with the challenges it faces, including the country as well.
Testifying as the last witness at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture last year, in his capacity as former deputy president of South Africa, Ramaphosa managed to prove that he has political muscle.
However, not much was a surprise in what Ramaphosa provided at the Commission.
What he said made perfect sense, even though it could be suspected that he, like any other loyal member of the organisation he represents, would want to cover certain things that may be harmful to the image of the party he leads or to himself for that matter, if he knew of any wrongdoing.
But even if he did cover up. It would be difficult to prove that he was covering up for the wrongdoing of his predecessor or predecessors, his party the ANC or himself for that matter.
However, one is convinced that Ramaphosa was telling the truth as he saw it, heard it, experienced it and understood it to the best of his abilities.
Did he tell it all? Time would reveal.
But it is more important to appreciate the position that Ramaphosa found himself in when he became ANC deputy president in 2012 and by implication, became deputy president of the country in 2014, especially after the gruesome and troubling revelations which emerged from the Zondo Commission over the past few years.
It does not take rocket science to see that Ramaphosa was very much powerless and even vulnerable under such circumstances.
In essence, this was not an ideal situation to be in as deputy president surrounded by a ‘corruption racket’, that was adamant to loot as much as possible, which was prepared to remove anyone from their position if they dare challenge them.
In all fairness, Ramaphosa joined the government in 2014 when former president Jacob Zuma was starting his second term.
So that means Zuma would have had five years of rolling ‘State Capture’ which would have given him more than enough time to cover his tracks and those who he was doing the looting of the State with, in this case it was primarily the Gupta family, as confirmed by verified evidence coming out of the State Capture Inquiry.
Therefore, it makes sense that by the time Ramaphosa joined government, he would be in the dark about what was happening in government more so if the systems to cover up the looting of the State were already in motion.
Even if Ramaphosa had learnt about possible corrupt activities from the media or comrades and contacts, what could a deputy president say and do while the sitting president is not acting and all powerful.
Bear in mind also, that the powers that a deputy president has are seriously limited to that of a sitting president. In this case, even if Ramaphosa suspected any wrongdoing on Zuma’s part he would have been grossly constrained to act.
Even if verified evidence landed on his desk. What was he supposed to do with it when Zuma was still the president of the country?
In the world of politics, for a deputy president to investigate a sitting president and fellow looters is never a smart move.
Had Ramaphosa gone ahead and investigated Zuma & Co. and the former president became aware of this, this would have given Zuma ammunition to fire his deputy.
In fact, because of the calls for a Commission of Inquiry into State Capture were made, which Ramaphosa as deputy president strongly supported, and closer to the 2017 Nasrec national conference of the ANC, word got out that Zuma was thinking of firing Ramaphosa so to pave the way for a Zuma ally, in the form of NDZ.
Ramaphosa’s long term approach was the perfect move under the conditions he was working in during Zuma’s reign.
Furthermore, what needs to be remembered is that South Africa’s party based system, gives the governing party and its president special powers to implement its national conference resolutions, albeit without deviating from the country’s constitution.
But the president, once in office, can even ignore his party’s national conference resolutions, especially if he is supported by high ranking and senior party members and structure, as Zuma was once.
The president also has the power to hire and fire Cabinet ministers including the deputy president.
Ramaphosa, just like any other person, would have stood no chance against such a hierarchy.
Zuma, who in exile surprisingly held senior strategic positions in the ANC, with hardly any formal schooling. Among the positions Zuma held was deputy head of the ANC’s secret police, head of ANC underground structures and chief of ANC intelligence.
ANC veteran Ronnie Kasrils, who worked closely with Zuma in exile, commented in 2016 that under the Zuma administration, the bugging of telephones and intercepting emails of senior party figures and journalists had become routine.Although Kasrils did not provide details, in 2009, 783 corruption charges against Zuma were dropped after his legal team came up with phone intercepts, dubbed the ‘Zuma spy tapes’, which suggested a political motive when the charges were laid.
In a 2019 report by the Canadian, The Globe and Mail newspaper, after a lengthy investigation into the State Security Agency (SSA), an official review panel found that Thulani Dlomo (a Zuma loyalist), who was a special operations unit had secretly engaged in a wide range of rogue operations like spying on trade unions and student organizations, covertly monitoring and penetrating South African civil society groups, using disinformation to weaken anti-Zuma protests, targeting Zuma’s rivals in the ANC, setting up a fake union to undermine a large independent one and “infiltrating and influencing the media” in an attempt to prevent bad publicity for Zuma.
The newspaper further added, the special operations unit had become “a law unto itself” and “directly served the political interests” of Zuma, even providing secret parcels of cash to the intelligence minister and other beneficiaries. Many of the unit’s intelligence operations were “clearly unconstitutional and illegal.
The high-level panel, was headed by former cabinet minister and anti-apartheid activist Sydney Mufamadi, who issued its 106-page report in March 2019. It recommended criminal prosecution of those who had led the illegal activities.
Dlomo had disappeared along the way, for months, South Africa’s intelligence agency searched for him, seeking to deliver a dismissal notice. They could not find him, even though he remained on the state payroll until October.
What this therefore means is that Ramaphosa and anybody else for that matter, who would have been deputy president to Zuma would be severely constrained and incapacitated.
And what we do know though, is that since Ramaphosa ascended to the presidency, billions of rands that were stolen during the Zuma years have been recovered and many people guilty of this looting are behind bars even before the Zondo Commission completed its work.
More than 350 people lost their lives in the July 2021 civil unrest, ministers held hostage, parliament burnt and the constitutional court attacked, including a fire that broke out at the Waterkloof Air Base in Pretoria last week. What next? What’s going on Mr. President?
South Africa has reached a stage where its people can no longer be comfortable about the leadership running its country’s affairs. It can’t be left to the political and economic elites to do the thinking for us and fix the country.
We sure can’t remain bystanders when the nation is burning. We have to find one another, bring people together, pull resources together to conquer the challenges facing us today.
Should we debate, discuss, and dialogue in public forums about injecting new energy and humanity in these troubled times.
I say, YES! What about you?
