Corruption: the conflict hots up, with government in denial

The word "corruption" has reached the same place in political thought in South Africa as the word "apartheid" 20 years ago.

After 18 years in government, the ruling elite of the African National Congress is now as firmly associated in the public mind with the word "corruption" as the now defunct National Party was associated with "apartheid". The only question is whether corruption will mean the death of the ANC, as surely as the NP was killed off with apartheid. The equation "ANC = CORRUPTION" is not politically sustainable.

The universal reach of the subject of corruption in the public mind, from high to low, across the political spectrum, and within the ANC itself, is plain to see.

* The former director of the National Prosecuting Authority, Advocate Vusi Pikoli - widely perceived to have been sacked by ANC government because of his zeal in prosecuting corruption, not least in his ultimately successful prosecution of Jackie Selebi, the former commissioner of the National Police Service - made a major attack on corruption and fraud in a speech at the Coega Business Forum in Port Elizabeth last week, in which he accused the government of being in denial.

 "Corruption is anti-constitution and is extremely costly and requires strong political will," he said. "Look at Port Elizabeth, for instance. Walmer is burning because of housing delivery protests. There shouldn't be such protests because it is not like housing is not budgeted for."

He said leadership vacuum and lack of accountability contributed to the increasing levels of corruption, also in private companies, which was ruining South Africa.

"We sometimes hear our leaders saying ‘there is no crisis', when there clearly is one," he continued. "Often, we see political leaders steal public funds today, but still occupy their office tomorrow. The next day they are appointed to higher office... to do more damage to the economy."

Pikoli concluded: "We need leaders who stand up for what's right, irrespective of the consequences."

* Only a week before, President Jacob Zuma listed corruption in his opening address to the ANC policy conference at Mid  Rand as one of a "range of alien tendencies" from which he said the ANC "should be able to cleanse itself."

* Within days, the expelled president of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema, directly linked President Zuma himself with corruption, in an interview with the Sunday Times headed "We rescued Zuma from brink of jail."  He was reported as stating that Zuma was seeking a second term as ANC (and State) president because he "fears being arrested once he leaves office."

Malema told the Sunday Times that he also "doubted whether the 'spy tapes' that led to corruption charges against Zuma in 2008 being dropped actually existed." He called on the National Prosecuting Authority - now minus Pikoli - to make public the so-called "spy tapes" which it claimed to have in its possession when it decided to withdraw fraud and corruption charges against Zuma.

"The NPA compromised principle for political expediency when it dropped charges against him, which was a wrong thing because the NPA shouldn't make political considerations when it is to prosecute. That is why today we are very interested to see the reasons behind the dropping of charges against President Zuma."

Malema added that the then acting national director of public prosecutions, Advocate Mokotedi Mpshe, had said he had the tapes - so "let him produce the tapes. One thing for sure is that Mpshe didn't have the tapes. We are waiting for those tapes. Let them be produced."

In reply to President Zuma's call at the ANC policy conference for the organisation to "cleanse itself" from corruption, Malema said the president first had to clear his own name in court.

"President Zuma is in no position to tell anyone about corruption," he stated. "He must first clear himself." Referring to the ANC's previous elective conference five years ago, when the Youth League played a major role in securing Zuma's election as president, he said Zuma had "actually has damaged the image of the ANC long before Polokwane and even after Polokwane."

*  In an article by Troye Lund  headed "ANC policy inconsistencies" in the Financial Mail, also from last week, the Institute for Security Studies was reported to have found that "75% of cabinet and 60% of the 400 MPs have outside business interests. Like the ANC's own investment interests, many of these private interests are linked to firms that do business with the state. ISS research points out these are difficult to track because politicians don't declare interests as they should, and because they do not have to declare the business interests of family members. This makes it easy to hide conflicts of interest."

Noting that the ANC policy conference was "filled with revolutionary bluster", Lund concluded that the party "refuses to go as far as banning its members or representatives in government from being involved with companies that do work for the state."

* In the only action against corruption with real teeth taken recently by members of the ANC, the Commissariat within the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) is pursuing a charge of theft of funds against its own executive members in the courts, following a professional audit of the personal funds of named executive members and of MKMVA. Also named as respondents in their alleged role as trustees of MKMVA are the Deputy President of South Africa, Kgalema Motlanthe (responsible for the dismissal of Vusi Pikoli during his previous brief tenure as State President in 2008/09, now a contender for the presidency at the ANC elective conference at Mangaung in December), together with the Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu.

The significance of this legal action is three-fold. First, it is being taken by a body in which all individual members have decades of membership of the ANC, following a series of assemblies which mandated their action, and after fruitless meetings with leading ANC officials at party headquarters. Second, it expresses a recognition from within the ANC itself of the necessity for the independence and integrity of the judiciary. Third, it expresses a recognition from within the ANC of the necessity for the freedom of the media, which publicised the Commissariat's application to the court in a major article in the Mail & Guardian last month.

This is particularly pointed, given the Zuma administration's Protection of State Information Bill - the "Secrecy Bill" - which is expected to be passed by ANC MPs like tame cattle and signed into law by Zuma before the Mangaung conference.

Andrew Feinstein, the former ANC MP and chairman of the ANC's component on the Standing Committee on Parliamentary Accounts, who resigned in protest at the Mbeki government's cover up of corruption in the Arms Deal- which cost the country an estimated R70bn in public funds - has stated: "If the Secrecy Bill had been in place I think we wouldn't have heard about the arms deal, the biggest corruption scandal of the democratic era in this country.... It would have been impossible to write about it because it was a matter of national security.

"The fact there was blatantly corrupt, criminal activity taking place under the veil of national security secrecy means that the Secrecy Bill would have simply swept that under the carpet. People like myself and the myriad incredibly courageous journalists and other activists and writers who've campaigned around it would have had to be silent or face jail sentences."

Feinstein added: "I think - if I understand the bill in its current form - that if I had published my first book, After the Party, and this legislation had been in place, I would have been liable for a jail term for using confidential state documents."

Clearly, corruption is a most central issue in the politics of the country. It is now perhaps the central issue.

The conflict within the ANC around this issue touches on a host of directly related and inflammatory fractures in the society: abuse of power, misuse of public resources, lack of accountability, a dysfunctional electoral system. In this way, the very widespread struggles for democracy of the apartheid era are now revived in acute form even within the ANC itself, and deserve careful attention.

Every expression in a fight for democracy of this kind should be studied and supported.

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