It is getting harder to take the ANC’s commitment to fighting corruption in its ranks seriously.
Last Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who promised a sleaze-free government, suspended Dipuo Peters, deputy minister for small business development, for a month without pay. This slap on the wrist was for her conduct in enabling state capture when she was transport minister.
On Sunday, far more serious allegations emerged about the head of the legislature. The Sunday Times reported that Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the speaker of parliament, allegedly took more than R2m in cash bribes from a contractor to the defence department. This happened while she was defence minister.
Days after this damning revelation the ANC and Ramaphosa have said nothing. Worse, this is not the first time Mapisa-Nqakula has been mired in controversy.
Years ago, she used a state jet to fly her son’s girlfriend from the Great Lakes to SA. She got off without rebuke. Before her elevation to speaker of parliament, she gave an ANC delegation a lift in a military jet to Harare supposedly to ask the Zanu-PF regime to be nice to its political opponents. In July 2021, she openly contradicted Ramaphosa’s characterisation of the mayhem and slowed the deployment of troops to quell the riots.
The UDM’s Bantu Holomisa is correct in asking Mapisa-Nqakula to fall on her sword.
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