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Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo by Gallo Images / Netwerk24 / Jaco Marais)
At the end of March, it will be D-Day for party structures to report on a set of guidelines for deciding how cadres caught up in embezzlement accusations should step away from their roles.
First published in the weekly Daily Maverick 168.
In the month of the anniversary of the first arrival of Covid-19 to the South African shores, President Cyril Ramaphosa has to accelerate the vaccine campaign and deal with a political arena that is burning.
In late March, Ramaphosa will have to deal with the consequences of the Constitutional Court hearing on the contempt of court case brought by the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into the state capture. The hearing is March 25.
If the court agrees with the argument of the commission’s secretary, Itumeleng Mosala, the police will have no choice but to imprison the former leader. Or the court could order Jacob Zuma to appear before the commission, and if he evades his subpoena for the fourth time in 2021, then he will be in greater contempt.
Either way, there will be a political crisis for Ramaphosa to handle. While Police Minister Bheki Cele visited Nkandla in an attempt to persuade the former president to appear before the Commission, the occasion was used to make it appear that Cele was a supplicant and was in a position to implore Zuma .
Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole already challenged a previous criminal contempt complaint filed against Zuma in November last year, when he left the commission without the permission of Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo. The jury is out on whether the chief police officer has the independence to execute a court order. The commissioner is implicated in the purchase of an intelligence gathering grabber that was to be used as part of the ANC factional rivalries at his election conference in Nasrec in 2017.
Later, Ramaphosa will also head the ANC delegation when the party appears before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry later this month. It is likely to be its main witness, and the party will respond to a series of testimonies about its role as the ruling party. The party has been named in most testimonies since the commission was launched in August 2018. It played a leading role in the testimony on how the Bosasa facilities company was viewed as a front company for the ANC. Former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi revealed how the money and generosity got to the party leaders, but the bigger story was how the company signed full election campaigns for the ruling party.
Ramaphosa is likely to face tough questions about his role as vice president during the decade of high state capture, even though he has overseen a schedule of major reforms since he became head of state. And you will likely also have to answer questions about how the state tender system has become a conduit of funding for the ANC.
In the commission’s lines of investigation into the Prasa passenger rail company and the Free State, testimony has been obtained to reveal how state contracting was used to funnel cash to the ANC.
Former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe bombed Ramaphosa’s gate this week, claiming that Glencore used it (Ramaphosa was a partner at BEE) to influence its contracts with Eskom. The global mining giant has denied the allegations, but Zondo assured Molefe that his testimony would not be hidden under the rug.
Ramaphosa will likely have to respond and explain how the system of what his deputy general secretary Jessie Duarte called “democratic centralism” in the exercise of parliamentary oversight with his MPs works in the party.
At the end of March, it will be D-Day for party structures to report on a set of guidelines for deciding how cadres caught up in embezzlement accusations should step away from their roles.
Immediate attention is on the party’s general secretary, Ace Magashule, who has repeatedly dodged the bullet from the step aside. Ramaphosa’s allies want Magashule to be disciplined for not withdrawing in accordance with a resolution passed at the party’s Nasrec conference. Magashule returned to court on corruption and fraud charges in August, and for him the next five months are either a success or a failure.
He is unlikely to retire from his post without a fight, and could even take him to court, setting up Ramaphosa for a long and painful battle with the man in charge of the party’s day-to-day affairs.
And if that weren’t enough on his plate and to show that Shakespeare was right when he wrote “Restless the head that wears the crown”, March has also revealed that the president is facing a face-to-face with his public – sectoral union allies.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has pledged to reduce public sector compensation by R142 billion over the next three years. The government hopes to achieve this through wage freezes and wage increases below the rate of inflation and deep cuts in benefits. You have already cut performance bonuses and want to take advantage of other costly benefits and benefits.
The problem for Ramaphosa is that the public sector unions that will suffer the brunt are his biggest political allies in the Sadtu Teachers Union, the Denosa Nurses Union and the Nehawu General Workers Union. There is an overlap between union members and the ANC branch and its union allies were key in bringing Ramaphosa to power. Now the cuts could cut him politically, especially as Magashule is loading his guns for a fight. Magashule could compete against Ramaphosa as president if the party’s elective conference takes place in 2022. Until now, Ramaphosa was widely considered to be a two-term ANC president and a two-term country president. But the certainty of that political bet has been lost now that factionalism explodes again. DM168
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available for free to savvy Pick n Pay shoppers at these Pick n Pay stories.
