A Failure of Integrity
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22 February 2009: A Failure of Integrity
The ANC’s Secretary General Gwede Mantashe seems to believe that a victory for the ANC at the polls in South Africa’s upcoming April elections will automatically bestow upon the party the moral authority it is currently struggling to maintain. His statements to the press last week (as reported in The Citizen, 19 February), following discussions with a high-level religious delegation, provide a strong indication that the leadership of the ruling party may have lost their moral compass. It is not the numerous allegations of fraud and corruption against members of the ruling party that alone suggest a failure of integrity. Rather it is the ANC leadership’s response to the allegations that suggests that the moral authority that the ruling party enjoys on the basis of its past struggle against apartheid, has been comprised.
Consider the record of the ANC leadership’s responses to allegations, and indeed evidence, of wrongdoing by its members:
Most recently, the revelations in the media about the fraudulent activities of former ANC spokesperson, Carl Niehaus initially elicited a sympathetic response from the ANC as articulated by Mantashe. Although Mantashe admitted that Niehaus had been wrong, he told the country and the media that Niehaus was a loyal member of the ANC who had suffered under apartheid and needed ‘counselling’ to overcome his problems.
The ANC leadership’s failure of integrity was clearly demonstrated by the fact that it was only when the weight of evidence presented through the media became too great to be explained away, and when others in the ANC, such a Gauteng Premier Paul Mashatile, were drawn into the fracas that the ANC’s tone towards Niehaus changed. In an effort to protect his own tarnished integrity, and indeed, to head off criminal charges, Mashatile told the country that he had in fact warned the ANC leadership that Niehaus was guilty of fraud and influencing tenders when Niehaus was anointed as the mouthpiece of the organisation. In other words, the ANC leadership were only moved to act against Niehaus because the allegations were made public, and not because they had any difficulty reconciling his behaviour with his high-level appointment. Although the Mail and Guardian reported over the weekend that there were several amongst the ANC leadership who had reservations about his appointment, they cannot be absolved from responsibility, since the ANC has repeatedly stated that the leadership works as a collective. It is important to recognise too that Mbazima Shilowa (as Gauteng premier at the time) also had a responsibility to ensure that the crimes committed by Niehaus were reported to the police, even though Mashatile only told him about the fraud after Niehaus’s resignation.
The recent reaction by the ANC leadership sends a very clear message to the public. In weighing up whether to appoint Niehaus as the official voice of the organisation, the advantage that could be gained from his eloquence was of greater importance than remaining true to principle. This is entirely consistent with the manner in which the ANC has handled the allegations of corruption against its President, Jacob Zuma.
The lengths that Zuma, his legal team and the membership of the ANC more generally have gone to, to prevent Zuma from facing charges of corruption, despite never denying that he was the recipient of large sums of cash from Shabir Shaik, suggest that it is not the fact that he allegedly received money in exchange for political influence, that concerns them most, but the fact that the NPA has sought to hold him to account.
Consider too the example set by the Minister of Correctional Services, Nconde Balfour. In the face of allegations by his Director General, Vernie Petersen that Balfour was implicated in fixing the tender process to ensure that Bosasa became the provider of services to the value of millions of rands to Correctional facilities, Balfour and the Minister of Sport conspired to quickly swap Director Generals, despite Petersen’s outstanding record as head of the Department. Subsequently evidence has emerged through the media that suggests that there may indeed have been merit in Petersen’s claims. This debacle has so far attracted not even the slightest public rebuke to Balfour from the ruling party or the President.
The ANC’s response to evidence that ANC members of parliament had defrauded the tax payer and travel agents by abusing travel vouchers in what has become known as the Travelgate scam, was again consistent with the softly-softly approach of the organisation to members who break the law. The public representatives who had erred were lightly rapped over the knuckles, assisted to set up easy repayment terms and protected from prosecution.
Is this a problem only at leadership level? Indications are that the tolerance of corruption and fraud has filtered down to all levels. At a recent seminar hosted by the ISS, Metro Police bosses lamented corruption within their ranks fingering unions as responsible for protecting corrupt colleagues. One of the heads of the Metro units recounted that in the light of evidence that one of their colleagues at the police college had cheated in his exams, Popcru members went out on strike to prevent the dismissal of their cheating colleague. While they did not deny that he had cheated, they argued that it was his first mistake and that he should be given lenience. In this way the union forced his reinstatement – it seemed unimportant to the union that the colleague who was required to uphold the law had clearly demonstrated that he found it difficult to distinguish between right and wrong.
It is true that corrupt politicians are not unique to South Africa. It is also true that we should celebrate the fact that the press is sufficiently free to be able to bring these matters to the attention of the public. This was not the case in the past. Yet in light of this shameful record, it is difficult not to conclude both that the ANC’s moral compass is disoriented and that the only reason it would protect those amongst its membership who break the law through their corrupt activities is because the practice is so rife that members of the organisation no longer believe that their actions are wrong, or because the spirit of comradeship does not allow for corruption to be recognised.
The ANC should be reminded that good governance is impossible in a context in which corruption is the order of the day, since it is in fact the ANC government that has put in place structures and processes to deal with corruption in the public service.
As the ugly and confusing battles between members of the ruling party and the judiciary continue to rage, citizens are bystanders to the erosion of the very systems that are required to uphold the rule of law. The message that the ruling party has most consistency sent the citizens of South Africa since the National Prosecuting Authority set out to prosecute Jacob Zuma on corruption charges, is that we cannot trust the prosecuting authority or the judiciary to conduct their work professionally and without prejudice.
The ANC’s election manifesto repeats the ‘tough on crime and corruption’ message that has been a part of ANC election manifestos since 1999 – yet it is hard to believe the sincerity of this message, or to believe that the ANC will live up to its promises, in the face of the denial it appears to be trapped in.
DDr Chandre Gould, Senior Researcher, Crime, Justice and Politics Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)
