I am a descendant of one of the men who sank with the SS Mendi in 1917. For decades it has been a story at the back of my and members of my clan's minds. The sinking of the ship is a powerful story I briefly shared with President Cyril Ramaphosa around the time he hosted then-British prime minister Theresa May in 2018. She brought with her the vessel's bell, discovered in the English Channel a year earlier.
Among the stories surrounding the SS Mendi's sinking is that of the role played by a reverend, Isaac Dyobha. As it became clear most of the men aboard would meet their deaths far from their South African homes, he rallied his compatriots and led them in a “death dance”.
“Now then, stay calm my countrymen! Calmly face your death! This is what you came to do! This is why you left your homes! Peace, our own brave warriors! Peace, you sons of heroes, today is your final day, prepare for the ultimate ford!”
You have to imagine the men's anguish, knowing there was little chance of survival, with Dyobha pointing out that whether they were Zulu or Xhosa, “we die like brothers”.
This story haunts me as I watch South Africa's economic decline as a consequence of political failings. Every day we are faced with a decline that will take years to stop, let alone reverse.
South Africa continued to receive negative press this week. We were in the Financial Times of London for all the wrong Eskom reasons. Globally respected publications such as Africa Confidential continue to tell the story of no hope under Ramaphosa and the ANC, as it did again this week.
Last Friday, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisted us. Greylisting is another story of our decline. Yet our politicians continue to feed us lies about being easily able to extricate ourselves from the mess they have created.
Greylisting goes hand in hand with a sovereign rating decline. We lost our remaining investment grade rating in 2020, having been junked by two agencies before that, in 2017. Regaining an investment grade takes about five to seven years, give or take.
Its impact on much-needed investment flows into South Africa is subject to debate. But one point is clear: the longer we remain greylisted, the higher the costs in this regard.
Government lethargy ensured the legislative processes to prevent our slide to greylisting were left far too late. We were thus unable to illustrate to our FATF peers that the necessary will and capacity to enforce compliance would be ratcheted up
We are lucky there is a lot of goodwill in South Africa and abroad about the Ramaphosa era. I get the sense the investment community is attracted to Ramaphosa the man, at the expense of the fundamentals around him, which tell a negative story. But that will not be for long.
The decision last week by the FATF, the global money-laundering and terrorist financing watchdog of which South Africa is a member, to greylist us shows that even peers who may be sympathetic to us can't ignore the fundamentals of economic decline.
The inside story of how we came to be greylisted remains to be told. But when it is, it will demonstrate that some local financial-sector insiders were acutely aware of the mood within the FATF community. They say our fate was signed as long as six months ago.
The story will repeat a commonly accepted wisdom: that the strong and deep capacity of our banking and financial sector to prevent money laundering and other illicit financial transfers is not matched on the flip side — ensuring compliance — by the multitude of government agencies charged with doing so.
Government lethargy ensured the legislative processes to prevent our slide to greylisting were left far too late. We were thus unable to illustrate to our FATF peers that the necessary will and capacity to enforce compliance would be ratcheted up.
Now we find ourselves beholden to the organisation's secretariat in proving we meet its requirement of showing a “sustained increase” in compliance performance. No fewer than three of the eight areas of strategic deficiencies identified by the FATF require South African agencies to demonstrate this “sustained increase”.
In this sense, it is not stretching the point that government departments and their myriad associated institutions lumped together in the justice cluster now have to account to a Paris-based agency for their performance and not just to Ramaphosa.
It's a clumsy, messy situation of our own making.
At the National Treasury, finance minister Enoch Godongwana and acting director-general Ismail Momoniat put on a brave face.
Godongwana knows the Mendi story, but gives South Africans a different message than Dyobha. He hopes we can escape our greylisting status by mid-2024, some 15 months from now. It is, unfortunately, difficult to accept his optimism.
Given what we — and our FATF peers — know about the extent of the compliance deficiencies across the justice cluster, we will be held to a longer period to prove a “sustained increase” in compliance.
Already some commentators have referenced Colombia as they look at our decline. Not many people will believe the nice words from our government.
While the Mendi sank quickly, the vessel it collided with, the Darro, survived without subsequent accountability. We, the population, are the Mendi, politicians the Darro.
• Mkokeli is lead partner at public affairs consultancy Mkokeli Advisory
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