If there's one universal truth that we've gathered from the disastrous presidency of Jacob Zuma it is that if you were of any use to him personally and in his public life, you had to at least meet one member of the infamous Gupta family. And if you were really important, those meetings weren't merely at the master's table at any ANC gathering, but in the confines of their family home in Saxonwold. To varying degrees, the survival of any minister or state official was dependent on how happy the president's inner circle was with their performance. In the worst-case scenarios keeping Zuma's friends happy was more important than looking after the state itself.
To serve in his administration, one had to meet these very important friends, and if you were of a weak character, you'd bow to their will. So the fact that finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had met the former first family (one can only hope that this is true) is by itself no surprise. The fact that he and his one-time deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, had at one stage visited their compound in the leafy suburb of Saxonwold was less surprising.
The question is what these public servants did after receiving instructions from the family. The heroes in the "state capture" story line so far are of those men and women who rejected whatever instructions they received from the unofficial headquarters of state and party. The penalty for these people in the final, and rather desperate, years of Zuma's presidency was there for all to see in the many midnight reshuffles.
Nene's recall on that December evening three years ago cast him as one of these heroes in the battle against the capturing of the state. His axing was perhaps the most audacious powerplay by a rather desperate president to appease some important friends, among them Russian President Vladimir Putin. When the history books cover his presidency, they'll mark that evening as the peak of his powers. Whatever little legitimacy it had was lost from that point.
Well that was what would have been in my first draft of any history about the decade of Zuma, with Nene's role defined as that of the unassuming hero. This week has, however, changed the narrative. The integrity of our hero has been sullied, and by the man himself.
As I said earlier, I've come to accept that meeting the Gupta family was virtually unavoidable for the most senior ministers in Zuma's cabinet and, to be fair, for the cabinets of his predecessor. What is disappointing, and especially for me as one of his chief backers, is that Nene chose to lie about the extent of his interactions with the family.
"It is reasonable of the public to expect public office bearers to own up fully and timeously to the mistakes they make in the course of carrying out their public duties. I should also have disclosed early, and fully, the details of these meetings, in particular those that took place in Saxonwold," Nene said in a Friday apology to the nation.
His visits, as he admits, cast a shadow on his conduct.
Why hide the extent of your dealings with the family? It has only raised questions of his judgment. Was the nuclear stand against Zuma the only one he made? Were there other moments where he rolled over to make the president's friends happy? Given their involvement and amount of damage in the state-owned enterprises such as SAA and Eskom, which moved under the umbrella of the Treasury since 2014, I now have to wonder how much Nene did tacitly allow to happen for political prudence, while fighting it out on the surface with people such as Dudu Myeni.
Recently there was a New York Times opinion piece in which some public servants in the Donald Trump presidency talked about their behind-the-scenes roles in keeping the country safe from the worst traits of their president. Are these men and women heroes, or cowards? I am with the latter on this, for to be brave would be to resign en masse and expose the malfeasance in the White House.
In the case of Nene, I was sure he chose the braver option, but now that he has lied about the extent of his relations with his former master's most nefarious friends, he acted as cowardly as the "heroes" in the White House.
When we eventually close the chapter of the Zuma years, Nene's public life will have to be a casualty if a New Dawn is to ever emerge.
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