How do we solve a problem like Jacob Zuma?
Terence Pillay wonders if there is an end in sight to the problems brought on by our president?
Listen to the full interview below:
Aren’t we all just a little sick of the constant new developments in the life and times of President Jacob Zuma? Two weekends ago, Joel Netshitenzhe raised a no confidence vote in the president, and apparently this time it really pissed Zuma off. The internal workings of the ANC is another matter altogether – I mean, I don’t know if anyone knows how they operate? But they keep saying that there’s no point in getting rid of Zuma now, before the elective conference, because his term is up anyway. But it’s not really. His term as ANC president will be up when they have the elective conference, but he still sits as the president of the country until the next general election. And that’s the complication.
So for those who don’t know how we got to this place, Judge Chris Nicholson investigated Thabo Mbeki in connection with the arms deal/corruption scandal and he unceremoniously got the boot as president of the ANC and the country. The deputy president at the time was Kgalema Motlanhe, who was then accepted as president, briefly. And in 2012, Jacob Zuma was then appointed as president of the ANC with the support of the ANC Youth League, led by Julius Malema, who said “they will kill for Zuma”.
So the ANC under Zuma’s leadership decided on how to deal with their particular approach to government empowerment and so these grand empowerment deals emerged with the concept of tenderpreneurship – getting big government contracts and allowing a particular family to exert undue influence on the state. We’ve seen it with Eskom, SAA, and a lot of the other state-owned enterprises.
So right back then, Zuma was already implicated in so many things. In fact they called him '738' because of the number of fraud and corruption charges that were levelled against him, many of which are still pending. You have the Thuli Madonsela report about the state capture, which implicated all his connections, including his son Duduzani Zuma, his involvement with the Gupta family, and the web of intrigue and the web of patronage.
It’s so bizarre that we actually lose track of all the things like the constitutional court ruling that said he had not upheld the constitution in respect of the secure and comfort report, which was the Nkandla Report. There was the Waterkloof Airport issue, the nuclear deal, agreements with the Russians, and now the emails that emerged between him and the Guptas and the palatial mansion in Dubai that the Guptas allegedly bought for him.
For me, despite all the allegations, speculation, and evidence of corruption and abuse of power and state resources that are stacking up against him, what’s really concerning is that we are living in a time where the economy is really under pressure. We’ve had these downgrades by international rating agencies, which obviously impacts on the costs of us borrowing money. If we want to meet our targets, for example, with the National Development Plan, the economy needs to grow between five and seven percent – it’s currently only at one percent.
In order to do this we need to invest and in order to invest we need money; and we have to borrow that money to invest in infrastructure and education – I mean we have the Fees Must Fall, which is costing us a lot of money because we’re having to finance all those students – we have to invest in our FET Colleges in order to make those work because we want thirty thousand new artisans and they have to be trained. So where does that money come from if we keep taking billions out of our treasury to pay for people’s luxury lifestyles?
We seem to be reaching a point where we’ve almost become immune to it – it’s one scandal after another. So how do we weather that? Given this current electoral period, it’s time the ANC made a decision on what is actually good for the country and not just what’s good for the ANC.
Do we just sit back and trust the democracy? Is it going to be enough to say that we’ve got institutions like the constitutional court, the Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector? These Chapter 9 institutions have been set up to protect the people but there seems to be no response to it; there’s almost impunity on the part of the state. But how long can we go on like this? Can we do this until 2019?
So for those who don’t know how we got to this place, Judge Chris Nicholson investigated Thabo Mbeki in connection with the arms deal/corruption scandal and he unceremoniously got the boot as president of the ANC and the country. The deputy president at the time was Kgalema Motlanhe, who was then accepted as president, briefly. And in 2012, Jacob Zuma was then appointed as president of the ANC with the support of the ANC Youth League, led by Julius Malema, who said “they will kill for Zuma”.
So the ANC under Zuma’s leadership decided on how to deal with their particular approach to government empowerment and so these grand empowerment deals emerged with the concept of tenderpreneurship – getting big government contracts and allowing a particular family to exert undue influence on the state. We’ve seen it with Eskom, SAA, and a lot of the other state-owned enterprises.
So right back then, Zuma was already implicated in so many things. In fact they called him '738' because of the number of fraud and corruption charges that were levelled against him, many of which are still pending. You have the Thuli Madonsela report about the state capture, which implicated all his connections, including his son Duduzani Zuma, his involvement with the Gupta family, and the web of intrigue and the web of patronage.
It’s so bizarre that we actually lose track of all the things like the constitutional court ruling that said he had not upheld the constitution in respect of the secure and comfort report, which was the Nkandla Report. There was the Waterkloof Airport issue, the nuclear deal, agreements with the Russians, and now the emails that emerged between him and the Guptas and the palatial mansion in Dubai that the Guptas allegedly bought for him.
For me, despite all the allegations, speculation, and evidence of corruption and abuse of power and state resources that are stacking up against him, what’s really concerning is that we are living in a time where the economy is really under pressure. We’ve had these downgrades by international rating agencies, which obviously impacts on the costs of us borrowing money. If we want to meet our targets, for example, with the National Development Plan, the economy needs to grow between five and seven percent – it’s currently only at one percent.
In order to do this we need to invest and in order to invest we need money; and we have to borrow that money to invest in infrastructure and education – I mean we have the Fees Must Fall, which is costing us a lot of money because we’re having to finance all those students – we have to invest in our FET Colleges in order to make those work because we want thirty thousand new artisans and they have to be trained. So where does that money come from if we keep taking billions out of our treasury to pay for people’s luxury lifestyles?
We seem to be reaching a point where we’ve almost become immune to it – it’s one scandal after another. So how do we weather that? Given this current electoral period, it’s time the ANC made a decision on what is actually good for the country and not just what’s good for the ANC.
Do we just sit back and trust the democracy? Is it going to be enough to say that we’ve got institutions like the constitutional court, the Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector? These Chapter 9 institutions have been set up to protect the people but there seems to be no response to it; there’s almost impunity on the part of the state. But how long can we go on like this? Can we do this until 2019?
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and engage with him there.