GHALEB CACHALIA: We need to rebuild SA by ending the ANC’s impunity

Amid the brouhaha around President Cyril Ramaphosa’s alleged flouting of parliamentary rules and procedures it might be apt to look at the culture of impunity, arrogance, entitlement and enrichment that has defined successive ANC governments since the dawn of our democracy, as well as the party’s “inheritance” of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the machinery of state.

Ramaphosa is alleged to have been involved in remunerative businesses; hidden large amounts of dollars (for what purpose is unclear) in sofas at his farm; failed to report the transaction to the revenue authorities; failed to report the theft of the dollars; and then used state resources to pursue the thieves.

In the broader scheme of things, his curious behaviour in response to what happened at Phala Phala may well be small beer when compared with the industrial-scale looting of the Zuma presidency, but it does raise serious questions. Among these are: what was the money earmarked for, and why all the subterfuge? Are we to believe this reflects a simple lapse by the unionist-turned-billionaire, who was largely gifted his billions in the BEE deal of the century? Or were the Phala Phala dollars going to be used to buy votes for the embattled president in the coming conference — a time-honoured practice in ANC circles? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

Apart from assuaging some white guilt and buying some influence, Ramaphosa’s elevation to billionaire status certainly made a lot of black people hugely envious — even if he didn’t crassly flaunt his riches. He’s indulged only in collecting rare cattle and some gentlemanly fly fishing. Oddly perhaps, they were more envious because while most didn’t care to emulate this attempt at a refined lifestyle, so appealing to many whites who were used to paying homage to the elegant thieves of yesteryear, what they wanted instead was the flash and dash of other recipients of big new money, who they were prepared to cut some slack as identifiable role models.

But, as they say, money is money.

Let’s go back to the struggle years, when a cabal of United Democratic Front activists controlled by Pravin Gordhan sought to direct the course of events, sidelining those who had the temerity to question the cabal and promoting others to key front-line positions. It paid off. In the years following the arrival of democracy many of PG’s (as he was referred to) acolytes were placed in significant positions of power and influence as directors-general, deputies and other positions in our nascent public service and government. Many have since retired, some have used their position and networks to build big businesses, and others have taken their pay-offs for service and settled into comfortable lives here and abroad.

They represented the first cohort of government functionaries who did rather well, and it created much jealousy among others who were sidelined and felt excluded.

As always, race was brought into the equation, and it created opposing factions eager to have their chance, particularly in what is known in Indian government circles as the “lucrative ministries”. The stakes surpassed even PG’s canny control — reflecting a desire by others to avail themselves of mega opportunities presented by arms deals and the like.

It must be said that many of PG’s cabal delivered without much malfeasance — either solidly, stolidly or stupidly — not unlike disciplined cadres of Stalinist organisations, adhering to a refined form of democratic centralism. As always, controlled in varying measure by the pharmaceutically trained Gordhan, preparing, as it were, customised dosages and prescription medications to meet individual patient’s or doctor’s needs.

However, many in the ANC had little opportunity to garner positions and deliver as PG’s petit bourgeois web did.
So eyes turned to the big-ticket stakes and the SOEs, which provided opportunities for milking. And opposition to anyone who stood in the way grew commensurately.

During Thabo Mbeki’s presidency, Chancellor House — the ANC’s investment arm that controlled valuable stakes in government-linked deals — awarded Hitachi Power Africa (now Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Africa) a R20bn deal in 2007 to build all six shoddily constructed and enormously over-budget boilers at Eskom’s Kusile and Medupi power stations. These have been the source of much of our electricity woes since. Many forget this was under the complicit chairmanship of Valli Moosa, who was a confidant and member of PG’s cabal.

Let’s also not forget the array of businessmen, lawyers, consultants and others who have fed off the largesse of Mbeki’s government. Some suffered a hiatus in the Zuma years as others were brought in, but they are now firmly behind Ramaphosa, ready to dig deep into their pockets and stand at the ready to secure an income and lifestyle on the understanding of “better the devil we know”.

During Zuma’s presidency the rot increased to a new level, culminating in full-on state capture for personal and party enrichment.

Julius Malema, the suspended leader of the ANC Youth League and founder of the EFF, never lost sight of the opportunities for enrichment and he has thrown his lot in with the ANC’s radical economic transformation (RET) faction. The ability of this motely bunch of charlatans, ranging from misogynists to thieves and fraudsters, to add value in government is inversely proportional to their propensity to loot.

The jury is out on whether a coalition of these dark forces will succeed in capturing the already sullied soul of the ANC.

Factional battles for control began to run riot in the ANC with the somewhat more elegant and palatable (to the commentariat) Ramaphosa faction positioned against the more coarsely and crudely made — grob in Yiddish — grubbers of the RET. And while Ramaphosa won, by the hair of a buffalo ball over Zuma and the RET setting the scene for his presidency, it has not been plain sailing since.

Ramaphosa promised a new dawn, pledging to clear out corruption and fire up the economy.

But, despite some high-profile prosecutions, corruption has continued unabated, the economy has faltered (even when compared to peer countries facing similar challenges), and the woes at our key SOEs (under Gordhan’s aegis for four years now) have worsened. This has placed an immeasurable and unsustainable burden on the fiscus. And so the “Ramaphoria” that accompanied the promise of a new dawn has dimmed. 

Then came the crisis brought on by Ramaphosa’s inexplicable dabbling in the sale of buffaloes and all the attendant questions — parliamentary, legal, tax and more.

The late Nelson Mandela’s party is now deeply divided. It’s an ugly tale of grubbing over spoils and neglecting the development of our country. All in the ANC are complicit; some by omission (very few) and others by commission.

Not only have they sullied the name of a once-proud and noble movement, but they have also brought a country rich in resources — human and natural — to the brink of bankruptcy by profligate spending, the cumulative effect of huge bailouts for badly run and looted SOEs and the failure of lofty race-based socialist policies that deter investment.

There is only one solution: vote this party out of office. But that requires two essential preconditions to change. First, the hitherto inexplicable propensity of most black voters to cast their ballots for a party that has kept them mired in poverty, in a violence-ridden, jobless society, and second, the false mantra bandied about by the ANC and others that members of the opposition are racists who will bring back apartheid.

New signs from polling figures provide much hope, but time will tell. Not only the black majority of voters will have to change in line with the reassuring polls, some white voters will have to, too. They will  have to jettison their misplaced hopes in another ambitious billionaire — a self-made man who began by selling skin-lightening and hair-straightening creams in the heydays of apartheid, as well as their tribal affiliations to parties that are throwbacks to a former era. Not because they present as substantial potential voting blocs, but because they detract from the task at hand and the need to put your vote squarely where it counts.

• Cachalia, an MP, is DA public enterprises spokesperson.