Every so often, the daily political mill churns out a perfect piece of hypocrisy. That is, a sentiment so deliciously duplicitous it stands apart from those more common place contradictions that tend to define the public landscape.
On this occasion, Tony Yengeni turned provider. He suggested — with the kind of ignorant sanctimony only the ANC elite can produce — that President Cyril Ramaphosa resign, given his stance on corruption and various allegations surrounding his ANC presidential campaign financing.
His suggestion made headlines because, well, this was Yengeni — a man who has become a metonym for ANC corruption, to the extent that South Africans renamed the Mercedes-Benz 4x4 after him, in honour of his particular brand of bribery. So, it was a bit like Fikile Mbalula telling someone to think clearly. Or just to think.
Time has a way of wiping the details from the public mind. But, when it comes to Yengeni, they are worth revisiting — so that we might be able to place exactly his newfound appreciation for ethical conduct and a personal moral conscience, in its full and proper context.
The exercise is also helpful in another way. The story of Yengeni is also the story of the ANC, and how it reacted to his crime — a useful reminder of how the party behaved at the time, bearing in mind we are told today it all about moral renewal and redemption.
So let us travel back in time, to 2006, and relive Yengeni’s conviction, incarceration and the ANC’s response to it all.
The hero’s send off
On August 21 2006, former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni’s final representation to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein failed. Yengeni had asked for leave to appeal his original conviction for fraud and corruption.
Curiously, Yengeni had previously pleaded guilty, as part of a plea bargain. The Sunday Times set out his admissions as follows:
- Backdating the 4x4 sale agreement and falsely inflating the price he paid to R230,052, to try to cover up getting an “improper benefit” when he had actually paid only R182,563.
- Lying about the 4x4 being “used” and “damaged” when he bought it.
- Lying about paying a deposit of R50,000.
- Lying in full-page advertisements (costing R250,000 each) he placed in national newspapers in which he “falsely attempted to give out that there was nothing improper about the benefit [discount]” he received.
Yengeni was told to report to Pollsmoor prison by 4pm on Thursday August 24 to start serving a four-year prison term. On the morning of August 24, ANC heavyweights began to arrive at Yengeni’s home, to pay tribute to their fallen hero.
Mid-morning, before Yengeni would leave for prison, minister in the presidency Essop Pahad joined Western Cape social services MEC Koleka Mqulwana and ANC Woman’s League provincial secretary Zodwa Magwaza at his house.
Pahad told reporters, “It is a very sad day. Tony is an old friend and he suffered a great deal for the constitution. I am here to wish him well as a friend and a member of the [national executive committee] of the ANC.”
The Cape Argus reported, “By 11am, the quiet neighbourhood was clogged with visitors and cars — fast and flashy — were mounted on pavements and double-parked.”
At 12pm, a black Range Rover Sport carrying Yengeni left for Pollsmoor. The Argus described the beginning of the trip as follows: “The cavalcade sped off, led by a silver Mercedes carrying ANC provincial chair James Ngculu and the ANC’s Max Ozinsky. The first traffic law was broken 200m down the road. The Yengeni procession was clearly not in the mood for waiting behind queuing traffic and demanded right of way. The first red traffic light was skipped 500m down Koeberg Road.”
“At Steenberg Road, 15km away, a hero’s welcome awaited Yengeni.”
He was greeted by some 500 supporters, who carried him 500m on their shoulders, from his car to the prison gates. The crowd chanted and denounced Yengeni’s sentence as “a travesty of justice”. They carried posters in Xhosa which said, among other things, “Yengeni is a leopard”.
Some prison warders forgot their place and were photographed singing and dancing with Yengeni’s supporters. A group of warders was seen toyi-toying.
Yengeni was lifted onto a makeshift podium. Earlier, he had been flanked by leading ANC members and public representatives.
They included: minister of correctional services Ngconde Balfour, Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, ANC Western Cape chair James Ngculu, minister of housing Lindiwe Sisulu MP, speaker in the National Assembly Baleka Mbete and ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe MP.
The ANC had actually announced that several of its leaders would be accompanying Yengeni the day before. The ANC’s deputy provincial secretary, Ozinsky said, “He is a leader of the ANC ... we stand by our leaders”.
Ozinsky said Mcebisi Skwatsha would also have wanted to accompany Yengeni, only he was returning from an overseas trip at lunchtime the following day.
Explaining his presence, on the day, Balfour said he was there “to make sure that due process was followed”.
Ngculu told the crowd that Yengeni’s crime did not match his punishment because he “did not steal from government or take a penny from anyone”. Ngculu was speaking from the back a bakkie, he was accompanied by Rasool, who told the crowd that, while Yengeni might have committed fraud, it was nothing compared to what the DA had committed: hypocrisy — “a crime worse than fraud”.
(The DA had been highly critical of the ANC leadership's decision to accompany Yengeni).
Finally, Yengeni himself addressed the crowd: “I don’t think this is the right time or platform to go into details of my trial. Suffice to say that what has happened to me is a great injustice. It is an unfortunate travesty of justice.”
He argued that a “patently” parliamentary issue had been “hijacked and criminalised” before accusing the media of distorting the facts, saying, “You’d think I’d broken into parliament and stolen the safe.”
After Yengeni had spoken, he was led through the prison gates by guards.
A mockery of parliament
The dubious attendance of the speaker of the National Assembly, was brought to parliament by the DA for debate on September 12. The ANC used the opportunity to celebrate Yengeni, and dismiss any wrong-doing on the speaker’s part.
The ANC deputy chief whip Andries Nel argued that, “No-one ha[d] yet convincingly argued how accompanying someone to the doors of a prison undermines or detracts from any of these principles [of good governance, accountability, transparency and the principle that no-one is above the law].”
He said, “Few organisations, if any, in the history of our country, have demonstrated as the ANC has, the resolve to pursue these principles, regardless of the pain and the political cost involved.”
Other ANC members argued that the ANC caucus was “proud” of the speaker; that it was important “that personal acts of solidarity with a convicted person should never be misunderstood to suggest disregard for the rule of law”; and that, “the speaker went there as her own person, exercising her right to freedom of association and the important values of ubuntu, Christianity and humanity”.
The DA was viciously attacked for introducing the debate, which concluded with the ANC introducing a motion to condone and defend the ANC’s behaviour as exactly in line with the constitution.
A luxury life in prison
Outside Pollsmoor, Yengeni had said, “Those who think prison will break me are in for a very big surprise!”
But there wasn’t going to be much in the way of hardship. Here are some of the highlights of Yengeni’s brief time behind bars.
Hours after entering Pollsmoor and after a large lunch, Yengeni was transferred to the far more modern and less crowded Malmesbury facility.
Once in Malmesbury, Yengeni was placed in the hospital section of the correctional facility and given a specially cooked meal on arrival. It is reported that Yengeni’s wife, Lumka, visited him continually, in contravention of prison regulations. It is also alleged that she brought a TV, music centre and a double bed for Yengeni.
On September 5, the press was told that Yengeni’s cell was in the hospital wing of the prison, in which he does not have to share a room, for his own safety. It was alleged that Yengeni was in danger in the communal cells. However by November 19, correctional services stated that Yengeni was, in fact, still in the hospital ward because he was sick. Correctional services alleged that he is prone to hay fever.
On November 11, Yengeni was released for his first weekend parole. Prison records show that on the evening of November 10, Yengeni was a category B prisoner, within which category he could not receive weekend parole. By the morning of the 11th, prison records reflected a change in status and Yengeni was released at 9am. Two hours earlier than the normal release time for weekend parole.
On November 12, Yengeni arrived back two nearly two hours later than instructed, which he attributed to “car trouble”. In addition, it emerged in the press that Yengeni had been photographed in his back garden holding a bottle of beer while receiving guests. The consumption of alcohol is forbidden during parole.
On November 13, Balfour stated his unhappiness with Yengeni’s late arrival and the department of correctional services announced that Yengeni would, as a consequence, appear before a prison board on breach of the parole code of conduct. In the interim, Yengeni’s visitor and phone privileges were revoked for two weeks. However, Balfour stated that this was not to be seen as punitive, rather that the measures were enacted to reduce interference in the investigation.
On November 19, Balfour, in trying to explain Yengeni’s weekend pass, is quoted as stating that Yengeni was allowed out for weekend parole as he had served one-sixth of his sentence. At the time, however, he had only served seven weeks of his 48-month sentence.
On December 2, Yengeni went on a hunger strike against his privileges having been revoked.
On December 4, correctional services reported that the investigation into Yengeni’s privileges had been completed and that his privileges had been reinstated. The minister was still studying the report, adding that allegations that the findings were inconclusive were wrong.
On December 25, the media reports that Yengeni was allowed to have a private Christmas meal with his wife at the prison, and was visited by 17 friends during the course of the day.
On January 15, Yengeni was released from jail after serving just more than 20 weeks of his four-year prison term.
In April 2007, reflecting on Yengeni and endless pressure from the DA to account for Yengeni’s farcical time in prison, Balfour said, “There is no preferential treatment. It is very sad, really, when a particular political party, like the DA, doesn’t seem to understand the work that we do, as much as one tries to explain.”
The ANC’s refusal to condemn
Right from the get go, the ANC was unwilling to condemn Yengeni. Kgalema Motlanthe infamously said of Yengeni in 2003, “We give space to individual leaders to follow their conscience ... the ANC only moves in when your own conscience does not guide you properly.”
The problem is, that presumes an individual conscience — the very thing the ANC’s hive mind-mentality negates. As early as 2001 Yengeni had dismissed all allegations against him, “with the contempt they deserve”.
That denial was evidenced, too, in his ANC send off, and in the attitude of the state towards his incarceration.
After his release, the disdain for ethics continued. Yengeni was deployed to the ANC’s political school, where he was placed in charge of political education. He said in 2012 that the school, “will ensure that individual members have their political consciousness increased, so that you know how to behave as a member, and as a leader and you know how to lead”.
“You should know the wrongs and rights. They are all spelt out in the constitutions and in various policy documents of the ANC.”
But Yengeni’s feigned expertise on ethics grew further still, and was further rewarded. In 2018, he was appointed to head up an internal party committee dealing with crime and corruption.
In defending that appointment, ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte would suggest Yengeni had never done anything wrong. “The conviction of Comrade Tony Yengeni worries many in the ANC,” she said. “What are we saying? If you negotiate a vehicle in this country you dare not negotiate a discount because that’s corruption? How many South Africans should then go to have a prison sentence for three years [sic]? It worries me personally.”
The perfect hypocrite
Today we have Yengeni suggesting to Ramaphosa that he resign. You have to marvel at it. For a man who has not once, ever, demonstrated an ounce of ethical contrition or even recognition, never mind responsibility, for his own shortcomings; a man who denied wrongdoing at every turn; and a man who made a farce of the state’s punishment and disdain for the rules and regulations that defined his term in prison, that is quite a suggestion.
Then again, it makes sense. No-one is better placed, or better represents the ANC’s attitude to personal responsibility, ethics, crime and corruption than Yengeni. Yengeni is the ANC, and the ANC is Yengeni. That is one thing his story illustrates better than anything else — the two were totally enmeshed.
So don’t balk too hard at the hypocrisy. It is only hypocrisy from the outside. From the inside, it is the ANC through and through, from the party leadership, to its deployed leadership in parliament, charged with oversight of the executive, through to the executive itself, charged with upholding the rule of law. And we have seen it a hundred times, from Sarafina through to Nkandla, how each of those issues are treated just as Yengeni was treated.
The truth is, it wasn’t Yengeni making that suggestion, it was the ANC. All of the ANC, from Ramaphosa through to Ace Magashule. From Thabo Mbeki to Jacob Zuma. From Motlanthe through to Gwede Mantashe. On a thousand issues, they have all played their part, all helped destroy accountability, deny personal responsibility, and downplay corruption and its consequences.
There is ANC corruption out there. A lot of it. And then there is the ANC’s organisational culture, as set out above — which is itself corrupted, ethically and morally. You can arrest someone in the ANC, but you can never really punish them. That is the deal.
All Yengeni was doing, really, was saying to Ramaphosa: “Why are you changing the rules of the game? We all played so well together, for so long?” And he would know better than anyone.
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