There is a famous saying that a week is a lifetime in politics and South Africa has gone through a very wild 24 weeks since Arthur Fraser opened that case at the Rosebank Police station — we have gone through multiple lifetimes.
This week however remains the wildest week in politics since the 2007 Polokwane conference. It may very well be the week in which the President ceded his power to power brokers within the ANC. We should all be worried — while we have been focussing on the RET faction, other powerful interests have made their chess moves and they look likely to win.
It is equally a time for an honest public reflection on the nature of the ANC. It is clear, indeed, that from Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We need new life beyond the ANC and a new beginning.
When the Section 89 independent panel chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo released its report finding that there was a prima facie case against the president in relation to the storage and theft of massive amounts of foreign currency at his Phala Phala farm, reliable reporting indicated that he was going to announce his resignation.
However a group of people who have been dubbed “the President’s protectors” were reported to have convinced him to stay. We have heard that there were those who were willing to fight for him legally, however, we didn’t hear much about those who were going to fight for him politically and protect him from those on the ANC parliamentary benches who were willing to vote for the establishment of an impeachment committee. Those seasoned ANC political players may very well have captured the President.
Over the weekend, the chairperson of the ANC, Samson Gwede Mantashe, took a leading position in making sure Members of Parliament from the ANC would vote along the party line. Mantashe, who is also the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, made threats to the ANC parliamentary caucus in the Mail & Guardian. He also articulated the same threats to Members of Parliament in the Sunday World that there would be adverse consequences if they disobeyed the party.
As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and when the vote on whether to establish an impeachment committee was carried out, only four members of the ANC voted against the party line. In effect, Samson Gwede Mantashe was able to deliver protection for the president on one of the most critical days of his career — but the question remains, at what cost?
Perhaps we are beginning to see the full pound of flesh that the President has had to pay to stay in that position. It is well known that Mantashe has been advocating for new coal power plants and those were included in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan. We know that Mantashe has supported fracking by Shell Oil and Gas in the Karoo. A few days ago Mantashe was accusing the Eskom CEO of treason, and now he has one foot out the door. On Wednesday 14 December 2022 the country was shaken by the news that Eskom CEO André de Ruyter had resigned.
This news came just one day after the parliamentary vote on impeachment and shocked the markets and many South Africans. Reading the political tea leaves, this seems to be a reflection that Minister Pravin Gordhan has lost influence as his man is gone. Has Samson found his full strength and what does that mean for the mining sector and the energy sector in the coming years?
It seems that the balance of power has shifted away from President Cyril Ramaphosa, not only to Gwede Mantashe but also to Paul Mashatile. Mashatile was the other dominant voice who was aggressively protecting the President and he is currently campaigning for the position of deputy president. There have been multiple reports on Mashatile and the infamous “Alex Mafia”.
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We have to think critically about what it means for South Africa for him to be at the helm, or to be the Leader of Government Business, which is a role usually undertaken by the deputy president of South Africa.
If indeed the President gave up his power and handed it over to these forces within the ANC, are we better off? Everyone in politics knows that when a leader wants to go, he has basically departed. He immediately becomes like a second-term president where everyone knows their time is up and power has shifted — what the Americans would call a “lame duck” President, a ceremonial President who will attend the international events and make all the relevant speeches but someone who is not making the key decisions in government.
Will these men be using the reputation of Cyril Ramaphosa to pursue their own political agendas? Would it not be better for South Africa for the President to resign so that we can see who is who in the zoo, so to speak?
It’s not normal for families to wake up without electricity and go to sleep without electricity. That is an example of state failure, the kind of state failure that we were promised by the President would be a thing of the past.
Objectively there are good reasons to welcome the resignation of André de Ruyter given all the recent failings of Eskom and the numerous reports of breakdowns at power stations, and it is time for a new leader at the helm. De Ruyter made promises that he could not deliver, for example promising that rolling blackouts would be eradicated by September 2021.
De Ruyter failed to get qualified people on his board and operated without engineers on the board for most of his time as CEO — these are not decisions that would have given him a viable path to success. His management was also found wanting when he implemented a reliability maintenance programme that evidently failed. South Africans were running out of patience and he seems to have no ideas on how to fix the problem. He acted as a referee during a difficult period of an ANC at war, which meant sabotage and acts of corruption within the plants were given free rein.
When it comes to how we fix Eskom, I strongly recommend that a seasoned and qualified person from within Eskom’s Generation Division should be empowered and supported to take the helm. Someone who has an engineering background and an understanding of the underlying problems occurring at the power stations and how to fix them.
Eskom needs a person who has experienced the challenges faced at the power stations first-hand, who has been involved with planning, maintenance and combating the corruption that crept in during the “nine lost years” of the Zuma regime. It is a pity that Rhulani Mathebula, Eskom’s generation executive, recently resigned as he is an example of someone who is well-positioned to come into the role and hit the ground running. Someone like him is needed who has first-hand and engineering understanding of the critical issues facing Eskom, who doesn’t need to be briefed about what needs to be fixed first and why.
Eskom must strongly consider the stability of the base load in the short term. While much has been said about gas and independent power producer, I submit that we have to include small nuclear reactor plants to our grid. This will stabilise the grid in the short term and also have no carbon emissions. On the road to fully renewable energy, we must make these strategic moves and make sure that the power utility is led by a competent and politically independent board.
South Africa, this whole situation is not normal and we are about to be dragged further into the dysfunctionality of the ANC during this elective conference. We need to move on from this once-respected liberation movement, led by great men and women of honour, to designing a future South Africa we can all believe in.
We need political leaders from all formations to start thinking seriously about how we can make winning coalitions because this current state of affairs is taking us further down the wrong direction. We cannot settle for the status quo, we all need to work towards viable coalition government in 2024. We must build a new centrist agenda — if we fail at this exercise, we will be held hostage by factional ANC battles.
I call upon all citizens from labour, business and civil society. Now is not the time to spectate and wallow in despair, now is the time to turn our anger into activism. There is no substitute South Africa, this is the only one we have. DM