Former president Thabo Mbeki tore into his successor, Jacob Zuma, on Wednesday, saying he was behind moves to destabilise the SA Revenue Service (Sars) to ensure the democratic state project collapsed.
Mbeki was speaking at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs at Unisa’s Muckleneuk campus in Pretoria. He is the patron of the school and chancellor of Unisa, Africa’s biggest distance-learning institute.
Mbeki said the report of the Nugent commission, appointed in 2018 by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe allegations of mismanagement at Sars, “communicates a message that we should all understand, that there are certain people in the country who deliberately set out to destroy this democratic state”.
The Nugent commission found there was “massive failure of integrity and governance” under former commissioner Tom Moyane.
The state capture commission, which was chaired by chief justice Raymond Zondo, also looked at the Sars issues and it agreed with the Nugent commission report, Mbeki said.
“The Zondo commission says one of the people who played a leading role to destroy Sars was the president of the Republic of SA. Fortunately I was not president at the time,” he added.
“It says Jacob Zuma was part of those leading those processes [to destroy Sars]. I’m telling you what the Zondo commission says. Now, that’s a bit of a conundrum that you’d have the president of SA participating in a process to destroy Sars. That’s kind of a contradiction that raises the question: ‘Who is this president?’.”
Zuma has been suspended from the ANC after publicly announcing he would support the new MK party, which on Wednesday unveiled him as their presidential candidate.
Mbeki said Zuma could not support MK and still remain a member of the governing party. “One of the two things is wrong,” he said.
While the Zondo commission highlighted the looting of state-owned enterprises during Zuma’s tenure as president, the goings on at Sars were astonishing, he said.
“In this case of Sars there was no looting. There were people who took a decision to destroy the institution. That’s remarkable in my view. Sars is responsible for 98% of state revenue. You destroy Sars, you destroy the state,” Mbeki added.
Destruction
“After reading the Nugent commission report, what stood out was the absence of looting [at Sars]. The intention was not to steal but to destroy the institution. How do you explain that; that there were would be people who seek that kind of outcome?”
The commission recommended that Moyane be fired. Ramaphosa swiftly implemented that recommendation, replacing him with Edward Kieswetter in 2019.
The commission also said that to ensure that power was not centralised in the office of the commissioner, a deputy position should be created. Sars opted for three such positions. The commission also recommended the appointment of an inspector-general to oversee Sars’ business and enhance governance.
Mbeki also spoke about the celebrations to mark 30 years of democracy in SA. “When someone says we’ve had a terrible 30 years of democracy they are not telling the truth,” he said.
He referenced a speech by SA Institute of Race Relations CEO John Endres delivered in the US about the future of SA, in which he said the country after the advent of democracy could be divided into three stages.
During stage 1 (from 1994-2007) the country was on the up, with employment rising from 8-million to 14-million by 2008, Mbeki said.
During stage 2 (2008-22) “the direct opposite happens” in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008-09, which destabilised markets and economies. “We are now drifting towards conclusion of stage 3,” in which municipal councils failed to repair potholes, policing was not effective, and “government can’t give us electricity”, Mbeki added.
“In the end you will get an SA that is governed by the private sector and NGOs, with the state playing a minimal part. That’s stage 3 … You need a strong democratic state to take [up the] matter of inequality,” Mbeki said.
“What do we do? Those questions won’t be answered by elections. They will be answered by something else. What something else is, I don’t know.”
South Africans head to the polls for the seventh general election on May 29, with the ANC’s support expected to dip below 50%, according to surveys conducted by Standard Bank, Wits University, the ANC, The Brenthurst Foundation, Ipsos and the Social Research Foundation.
Mbeki has been increasingly vocal about SA’s state of affairs and the ANC stewardship of Africa's most-industrialised economy.
In March 2023, he delivered a scathing critique of ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile and the ANC’s parliamentary caucus, saying it was wrong to have used its parliamentary majority to veto the establishment of multiparty committees to probe the robbery at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm and the ensuing foreign currency scandal, and corruption at Eskom.
In a letter dated March 29 2023 and addressed to Mashatile, the party’s public representative in parliament, Mbeki compared the ANC’s actions to it voting against several motions of no confidence against former president Zuma at the height of state capture.
Mbeki fired Zuma as SA’s deputy president in June 2005 over corruption allegations involving the latter’s erstwhile financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.
Zuma, however, manoeuvred his way back into the corridors of power after defeating Mbeki for the ANC presidency at the party’s elective conference in Polokwane in December 2007. Eight months later, Mbeki was forced to resign as president after being recalled by the Zuma-led ANC.
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