EDITORIAL: Bejani Chauke was right to quit

News that Bejani Chauke, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s senior adviser, has quit must be hard to swallow for the embattled president. But it is the right thing to do.

Chauke, a campaign manager for the president’s 2017 ANC leadership contest, has been more than an adviser to the president. He has been a confidante and is known to have been part of the inner circle that persuaded Ramaphosa to run for the ANC presidency against Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Jacob Zuma’s preferred successor, in 2017. Together with Ramaphosa’s campaign team, Chauke marshalled the finances to fight a campaign to get Ramaphosa over the Nasrec line in 2017 and into the Union Buildings a year later.

A well-educated, hard-working young man, Chauke is ambitious. Last December, he tried and failed to become the ANC’s treasurer-general. Undoubtedly, age is on his side in ANC terms.

But there are hurdles he needs to clear first. His role in the Phala Phala scandal, involving the theft of US dollars and alleged cover-up of the robbery at the president’s farm, is still not clear.

His instincts to leave the president’s side are correct. However, his suggestion that he will continue giving free advice to Ramaphosa is inappropriate. It is bad for himself, the office and his boss’s credentials as a champion of transparent governance. Chauke must leave the office until the Phala Phala affair is explained, once and for all.