No, Cyril, you unfortunately can’t have your cake and eat it

By: Clyde Ramalaine 

– All shall be equal before the law –

We live the Orwellian dictate of an Animal Farm in South Africa. In any normal setting, those who are investigated must vacate to allow the guarantee of no interference. Some do pretend to be more equal than others. The more significant example of Orwell’s observation plays out today in South Africa when the sitting South African President deems himself above the law and rebukes when he fails to appreciate he does not just owe us answers but cannot occupy the office while he is investigated.

He must step down and allow the investigation against him, now led by the Hawks, to take place without fear or favour. Ramaphosa, by his constitutional head designation, is also the Commander in Chief, the military and police boss. We saw that when he, on occasion, in one press briefing to exert his power addressed SA flanked by the heads of SANDF and SAPS, respectively.

“The Hawks and NPA mustn’t sit on their laurels; they must do their work and investigate so those involved can be dealt with… there is no reason for the Hawks and NPA to wait for a commission of inquiry. Something about state capture should be done immediately.” [sic] ”

Do you remember these words? Do you recall who was this bold? Do you recall its occasion? These are the words of Deputy President Ramaphosa in August 2017 while on the ANC presidential campaign trail at a COSATU rally. On this occasion, he spoke as the self-appointed innocent meridian of morality, the claimed hope of anti-corruption, and the self–appointed guardian of justice. It was also his central pet theme of state capture, on whose coattails he would emerge in a farce of a bought 54th Conference election that needed more than R1bn. Let us hear Ramaphosa in his own words. Ramaphosa, at the time, does not take us into his confidence as to the substantial reasons for this conviction. As a former attorney, he called for the NPA and Hawks to investigate and act.

In November 2017, he would repeat this feat in the National Assembly. While addressing Parliament on the eve of the birth of the Commission, he told MPs: “It is important that this Commission be appointed. It is important for all of the reasons I’ve stated in this House. There is ample evidence of the capture of key state institutions to advance private interests. This is something that should concern and worry all of us. The evidence suggested that efforts to divert public resources into a hand of a few families and individuals were continuing. While a commission of inquiry is necessary to ensure the depth of state capture is fully revealed and how it happened, the investigation and prosecution of those does not need to wait for the Commission. Every credible allegation needs to be investigated thoroughly, and those who have broken the law need to be criminally charged and held to account. If we are to put a stop to corruption and state capture, those responsible must be brought to book.” [sic]

Hooray! Mr. Clean broom, we wanted to shout, but we are forced to reduce this to mere political claptrap. Because the one speaking is no reflection of what he is apparently championing, he also cannot, at his level [deputy president of party and state], claim ignorance or innocence in his conjoined role in the very ‘state capture’ practices. Lest we forget, he at the time held the office of head of government business. He chaired a year earlier the Eskom war-room. He was the one that recommended Brian Molefe for the CEO role. It was his associations with the now admittedly corrupt Glencore. He wanted to rob Eskom blind in increasing coal prices and abdicating due penalty charges of R2bn, which makes him less a voice of reason.

It was the same man who, in the Marikana massacre, gave instructions of concomitant action against strikers in his notorious email messages. So making the right noises does not translate to being the saint or clean, as South Africa is learning with the 2020 Phala-Phala Farm crimes and many more before December will be unveiled.

Well, it’s five years since CR17, on the campaign trail, called for the HAWKS and NPA not to wait but to investigate and charge those he deemed his political foes. After five months to the ANC 55th Conference, we Listen to how Ramaphosa, in this season of Phala-Phala crimes, point-blank refuses to take SA in confidence, let alone SA his own National Office Bearers, whom he tells this Phala-Phala farm gate money is none of their business. Today Ramaphosa hides behind white painted picket fences of: ”We would like to leave the whole matter of the robbery to due process which must unfold.” Cyril, what is the whole matter?

He desperately avoided answering fundamental questions in a carefully crafted media question session that he wanted to use for his usual public relations games. Pushed further by Qaanitha Hunter on the impact of this criminal case on investor confidence, Ramaphosa would now dare to say: “Investors make their decisions based on a number of factors. They don’t look at one issue. Country risks etc.” This reply makes a mockery of ethical leadership. More troublesome is that Ramaphosa is wholly unperturbed by the several egregious allegations which constitute a Rosebank Police Station case number. Listen to how the investors are less concerned about the actions of a president in this season. Lest we forget, Cyril told SA how state capture [as led by Zuma] hampers investment since he was the investment guru at the time. I wonder if Ramaphosa would have appreciated it if others told him investors do not just consider claims of state capture against Zuma but look at a plethora of other things?

Ramaphosa now reminds us of “processes”. He is accused of flaunting a slew of laws and breaking his ethical code of office with egregious criminal allegations of kidnapping and bribery, among others. He is suddenly wholly oblivious to his 2017 statement on state capture, where he instructed the Hawks and the NPA not to rest on their laurels, depending and waiting for the Commission to conclude its work since the evidence for Ramaphosa, the labour attorney, was overwhelming. Notwithstanding most State Capture reports available, Cyril cannot take his own advise to act against some of his cabinet ministers, such as Gwede Mantashe, Zizi Kodwa, David Mahlobo, and Thabang Makwetla, among others.] all fingered by Zondo. Today he always considers his interest and quest for a second term as more important than acting against those who compromised and conflicted.

Ramaphosa suddenly cannot understand that we, as South Africans ask him to step down since we see the overwhelming evidence of his breaking the law. He instead wants to go to the lame-duck ANC Integrity Commission whom he abused with its permission before, to appear with a legal representation when no ANC member is allowed that privilege. This jaundiced exercise of an Integrity commission will lull us into accepting the wilful dodging of his responsibility to step down. Ramaphosa must step down, and we as South Africans are unfortunately not interested in any ANC-manipulated process that cannot escape the sordid factionalist reality. In any democracy, any president accused of the types of criminal allegations would long have stepped down. Ramaphosa continues and gives his organisation and its leadership structures a double finger. Is it because they are beholden to him?

The primary reason why the call for Ramaphosa to vacate this exalted position is that even before he is criminally charged, he has already admitted a constitutional violation of Section 96.

• Ramaphosa must step down because he does not hold the future of this nation in any moral leadership.
• His leadership has failed to arrest the crisis of perpetual load shedding issue, and all SOEs under his supervision are dysfunctional and dilapidated.
• He does not remotely present the hope of economic redress; under him, every critical denominator of societal progress measurable attests significant digression.
• The organisation he leads is worse off under him. Under his leadership, the party he represents has lost significantly, and all critical metros are long no more with the ANC at the helm.
• Despite the zillions of job summits, a litany of promises of job creation draped in his usual platitudes and verbiage South Africa has a youth unemployment level of 66,5%. After five years, Cyril has no answers for the jobless economy, let alone transforming the economy to benefit the black masses.
• While he glibly advocates and often pretends to himself a corruption buster, he horribly fails to claim that status honestly. Not when he removed a functional minister [Lindiwe Sisulu] who exposed the corruption of more than R3,5bn in the Water ministry and replaced him with someone [Senzo Mchunu] who lacks the courage to continue such sterling work.
• Under Ramaphosa, the railway infrastructure artery, an essential for our economy, is reduced to history, and it will take a generation and billions to bring the infrastructure back to life.
• Municipalities that his party still leads are all abysmal failures, and service delivery is the potholes we daily encounter with Kimberley in the Northern Cape; the prime example is the lack of leadership, let alone management he represents.
• His claim of being busy with ANC renewal rings as hollow as the cymbals of Tubac.

Suppose the ANC could forgive him for all those mentioned above. In that case, the South African citizenry cannot overlook the glaring floating of Section 96 of the Constitution. As a people, we cannot escape the undeniable reality of a criminal case detailing counts of kidnapping, bribery, and not declaring income. South Africans are confronted with a president intrinsically part of repurposing his Presidential Protection Unit, head Major-General Wally Rhode into an investigating officer to lead clandestine investigations beyond the borders of SA.

South Africans struggle to know that while they must comply with FICA that limits cash in anyone’s possession to R25000.00, its president arrogates himself an inalienable right to violate the Act for cash possession of millions of US dollars stashed away not in a bunker but in couches and mattresses. South Africans deserve answers as to why its president was in control of foreign currency to the level of what is in the Fraser case. Owning millions of foreign currency, of which the origin remains a mystery. Breaking the law and standing accused of money laundering, let alone dumping a neighbour state in political crisis, all for his personal interest, tells us we are dealing with someone who is not fit to lead.

So you ask why then is he still in office?

• He is in office because his personal enlisted Bell-Pottinger crowd constitutes the selective morality Zuma obsessed Foundations, an embedded section of the mainstream media, subservient clergy, hired academics, ANC NEC, and NOB members who are wholly beholden to him.
• He is in office because the likes of Raymond Suttner render him a victim of what Zuma did in destroying accountability. To Suttner, we say your hollow attempt to exonerate Ramaphosa when you blame Zuma is your spinning. Such cheap spinning where attempts are made to defocus South Africans from the unfolding corruption of Ramaphosa.
• He is still in office because he purports to be more equal than others. We know that every time we as South Africans call for him to step down, some opposition party like the DA almost begs him to take SA into his confidence. For the record, we as South Africans are not interested in being taken into any confidence of Ramaphosa. He has continued to lie in the hope of covering up his breaking of the laws of the Country.
• He is in office because he believes the NPA will not find grounds to charge him for any of the crimes the Fraser docket speaks to. He is in office because he does not see the error of his ways and can bully a malleable NEC, most of whom are riding on his coattails.
• He is in office despite his endless lies. He has been publicly lying with a straight face that the USD millions constitute the proceeds of livestock sales. He did not appreciate or understand that auctions at this level do not accommodate cash regardless of currency. Advocate Dali Mpofu would tweet, “So a certain Mr. Smith who is the person running the animal auctions at # Phala-PhalaGate #FarmGate including the one of this coming Saturday has told the media that they do NOT take cash (even in rands), but they only work in electronic transfers!!.. Lies indeed have short legs!!” [sic] Ramaphosa, who until now has been insisting he stole no taxpayers’ money, either in ignorance or arrogance, forgets not declaring income and denying SARS to collect due taxes meaning this claim if therefore, his “I didn’t steal state money” is also a red herring. Denying SARS to harvest taxes by not declaring your actual income is a crime and translates to stealing from the state coffers.
• He is still in office because, obviously, less justice-centered judges like retired Zac Yacoob pretend to argue that it was Ramaphosa’s right to retrieve his money. Since he did that, there was no need to report the theft or robbery. When Yacoob makes this political statement, we know there is no respect for the basics of upholding the law, let alone any quest for moral leadership in his epistemology of jurisprudence. The same Yacoob who in January on national television called for Lindiwe Sisulu to be criminally charged for having written an opinion piece Hi Mzansi, have we seen justice yet.’ Yacoob is exactly what is wrong with a SA judiciary they are factional with scant regard for the law.
• Today Cyril is still in office because self-appointed moralist Cheryl Carolus after being financially dry-cleaned by white monopoly capital into almost billionaire status begs Cyril to come clean when she is her usual attention-seeking drama in January demanded action against Lindiwe Sisulu. This is the hypocrisy of so-called veterans who are beholden. Carolus does not say to Cyril step down and deal with clearing your name, like all beholden ones instead begs a truant president who is arrogant enough to tell his NOBs what happened on his farm has nothing to do with them.

Even the carefully orchestrated arrest announcement of the Gupta brothers [they must face their music for what they are accused of] in the UAE, this exercise was meant to take the heat off Ramaphosa, will not stop South Africans from insisting Ramaphosa steps down. Despite Ronald Lamola’s vehement protest.

Like Ramaphosa in August 2017, who demanded the NPA and HAWKS to act, we today unequivocally and irrevocably say: “While a commission of inquiry is necessary to ensure the depth of state capture is fully revealed and how it happened, the investigation and prosecution of those [who stands accused of kidnapping, money- laundering, and bribery] do not need to wait for the Commission.

We echo Ramaphosa, “Every credible allegation [a case opened at Rosebank or elsewhere] needs to be investigated thoroughly, and those who have broken the law need to be criminally charged and held to account. If we are to put a stop to corruption and state capture, those responsible must be brought to book”.

We encourage the NPA and the HAWKS to do their work and not be intimidated by a truant president who deems himself as unique and not equal to others before the law.

SA sits with a president that fell for the sophism of his unique placing in history. A convenient placing of him as an anointed saviour of the ANC and SA led by his paid drum majorettes in and outside the ANC. This is how dictators are birthed.

Cyril must step down because NDPP Shamila Batohi, unless for political interference, ultimately will have no option but to charge him since Arthur Fraser did not just depose an affidavit; he provided whoever will investigate the case with undeniable evidence making a docket.

No, Cyril, you can’t have your cake and eat it. All shall be equal before the law.

*Clyde N.S. Ramalaine – Political Analyst, Social and Economic Justice Activist, Author, Writer