SA’s young constitutional democracy will on Wednesday face a historic test when an independent panel reports on whether President Cyril Ramaphosa has a case to answer in relation to the money that was stolen from his Phala Phala farm in 2020.
On Monday, the three-person panel headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo confirmed that it would meet its end-November deadline for tabling the report to parliament. The panel was appointed by the speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, to investigate whether the president broke the law in the way he dealt with the theft of money — in foreign currency — from his farm.
This was after Arthur Fraser, the former intelligence chief and correctional services commissioner, opened a criminal case against Ramaphosa, alleging all sorts of things including a cover-up of the incident and the abduction of people.
The Ngcobo panel is just one of several parallel probes into the incident. The SA Reserve Bank, SA Revenue Service (Sars), public protector and the elite Hawks police unit are also investigating the incident. The ANC, the party Ramaphosa leads, has looked into the matter and come up with an inconclusive finding, claiming it didn’t have enough information to determine his fate.
In the beginning Ramaphosa appeared forthcoming about the incident, telling party supporters in Limpopo that the stolen dollars were proceeds from the sale of animals at his farm. Subsequently, apparently acting on legal advice, he became reticent to share anything more.
Unsurprisingly, his political enemies — in and outside the ANC — have pounced on the incident, using it to demand his head, that he step aside or step down from his positions as party leader and the country’s president while the numerous probes are ongoing. He hasn’t; instead, his posture has vacillated from being defiant to being mum while pledging full co-operation with the investigations.
Parliament, not known for its diligence, has scheduled a debate on the report for December 6, a matter of days before Ramaphosa asks ANC delegates to give him a second term as ANC president at the party’s 55th national elective conference in Nasrec.
Whatever the report says, it will mark an escalation of the political conflict around his presidency. This is not the first time the ANC has found itself in this position. Remarkably, it has not developed clear mechanisms to deal with such situations.
During his second term, Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma faced numerous allegations of corruption and state capture. When the party asked him to step down for bringing it into disrepute, he simply ignored it. Yet the ANC also helped him survive almost 10 votes of no confidence in parliament.
He remained defiant to the end of his party presidency and even after his preferred candidate for the party’s top position, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, lost the party leadership contest to Ramaphosa in 2017. He continued fighting to complete his term as president until the new party officials showed him the door.
Thabo Mbeki’s exit was quite different. After losing his bid to stay on as party leader for a third term, the party grudgingly allowed him to continue as head of state. But the post-Polokwane era was filled with conflict, with the new ANC leadership seeking to micromanage Mbeki. At one point it imposed Kgalema Motlanthe, then Zuma’s deputy in the party, to keep an eye on him by making him a minister in the presidency.
This uneasy arrangement came to an end after a controversial judgment wrongly accused Mbeki and his cabinet of meddling in Zuma’s prosecution. Mbeki successfully appealed the judgment in the Supreme Court of Appeal. But his Zuma-supporting party colleagues were annoyed by the move and used it to sack him. He resigned after being “recalled”.
Unlike Zuma, Mbeki didn’t seek to cling to power. Even when the army generals threatened to arrest party leaders Gwede Mantashe (then secretary-general) and Motlanthe — who were tasked with informing him of the recall decision — he stopped them and instead voluntarily stepped down to avoid a constitutional crisis for our young democracy.
The difference between Zuma and Mbeki is clear: the former cared mainly about himself while the latter worried about what his refusal to resign would do to his party and the country.
This is the test facing Ramaphosa now. He came to power when the bar was low and sought to raise it. He pledged clean governance and ethical leadership. He appointed decent leaders to key public institutions such as the National Prosecuting Authority, Sars and the Hawks.
His first test for a sleaze-free administration came early in his presidency. In late 2018 Ramaphosa dismissed Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister after it emerged that, contrary to what Nene had said in a TV interview years earlier, he had in fact met the controversial Gupta family. This was after Ramaphosa had dropped most of Zuma’s allies and those mired in allegations of state capture and corruption.
Whatever Ngcobo’s report finds, Ramaphosa should prioritise SA’s interests. The country has many problems that require stable and decisive political leadership. The parliamentarians who will debate the report need to be level-headed and avoid point scoring.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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