The Phala Phala test — is SA ready to end selective outrage against corruption?

If South Africa wants to meaningfully and effectively combat corruption, it must abandon its stance of selective condemnation.

We see it every day, especially when a political opponent is accused: due process becomes an afterthought, and the allegation alone is treated as a conviction, without a single minute of court or disciplinary proceedings. But, when an ally is accused, due process suddenly becomes a fortress: every procedural question is raised, every technicality explored, every delay welcomed. Impressive creativity is used to offer inexplicable justifications for why accountability should be measured, contextualised or deferred.

This pattern runs across the political spectrum, practised by parties that built their identities on fighting corruption and then discovered flexibility when their own leaders faced scrutiny, by commentators who pivoted from demanding accountability to debating legal technicalities. In my experience, it happens across other sectors, including within civil society itself.

The Phala Phala scandal calls for exactly this kind of about-turn. As an activist who has worked in this space, it can become deeply frustrating, even infuriating, to watch mainstream actors in news media and politics backslide on the core principles that underpin the anti-corruption struggle.

The Phala Phala saga has been, in this regard, painfully instructive.

The facts are well known: about $580,000 in undeclared foreign currency, hidden in furniture at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Limpopo game farm, stolen in a housebreaking incident in 2020.

In late 2022, the Section 89 independent panel – section 89 of the Constitution deals with the impeachment and removal from office of the president – constituted in the wake of the scandal and chaired by retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, concluded that prima facie evidence exists that Ramaphosa may have breached the Constitution, violated the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, and engaged in serious misconduct inconsistent with his oath of office.

A former Chief Justice does not make such findings carelessly. Yet Parliament, in December 2022, voted along ANC party lines to politically reject the panel’s report and decline an impeachment inquiry.

Now, the Constitutional Court has corrected that folly. In a judgment delivered on Friday, 8 May by Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, the court declared Parliament’s vote irrational, unconstitutional, and invalid, and set it aside.

The path to impeachment proceedings is now formally open. The court upheld what Parliament had abdicated: the principle that accountability is not optional, and that the Constitution does not bend to majority votes taken in the service of a ruling party.

Politics muddies the waters of anti-corruption

Such matters often become politicised, because yes, politics permeates everything. But it is also weaponised. The fight against corruption becomes a battering ram against opponents and a shield for those who find favour with us.

It is, perhaps, the very reason why this country’s gains on corruption remain marginal. Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index gave South Africa a score of 41 out of 100, below the now-declining global average of 42.

That did not happen by accident. It happened in a country drowning in anti-corruption rhetoric and starved of anti-corruption accountability.

You cannot say, on the one hand, that intention and talking a good game aid in the combating of wrongdoing, while on the other, strangely weigh that against holding a person in office, who may have done wrong, to account. That is not a principled position. That is convenience dressed as principle.

The danger is not merely one of moral inconsistency, because when accountability is applied selectively, it loses its deterrent power entirely. The lesson the system teaches is not “do not abuse your position”. It is “do not abuse your position without sufficient political protection”.

Focus on the important question

Setting aside the legal specifics, the broader and more urgent question is this: what are the rest of us to make of the commentary that followed the ruling, especially in respect of accountability?

The debate shifted, as it always does, from “what did the accused do?” to “what does this mean for our side?”

Some voices retreated to comparison: “Is this really as bad as looting the public purse?” It is lazy, dangerous thinking. The question is not whether one form of alleged wrongdoing is worse than another. The question is whether a sitting president has a case to answer, whether he resigns or not. The Section 89 panel concluded that, in terms of the Constitution, he does.

There is also the argument, advanced with a straight face in some quarters, that because the alleged conduct occurred on private property, it is somehow less serious, conveniently ignoring that a president has no purely private sphere when it comes to the exercise of power.

The anti-corruption struggle cannot, should not and will not be reduced to political convenience. It is not a small thing to steal R100 from the till, to look the other way when someone else does wrong, or to exploit a provision in law simply because it exists.

It is most concerning when this is done by a person who accepted the responsibility to lead. Such responsibility also includes recognising the weight of the role you hold and the importance of the people you serve. That is what accountability means at its most basic level.

Genuine accountability requires a single, consistent standard: conduct assessed on its merits, regardless of who committed it. This is drowned out by the noise of those with a smart device or a microphone who speak on these issues while bending their principles to suit the moment.

As we strategised for the next era of the anti-corruption fight at Corruption Watch, we recognised that the greater problem is not legal or policy weakness; it is the absence of accountability culture in both the public and private sectors, and that view is shared by communities across the country.

We have led in exposing corruption and deeply appreciate those who have done so at great personal risk. But it is time to raise the bar, to unapologetically call for justice and accountability to realise a society that truly centres its people.

The Constitutional Court has done its part. What happens next, in Parliament and in public opinion, will be revealing – not about Ramaphosa’s guilt or innocence, which is for a proper process to determine, but about us. About whether this society is capable, finally, of applying the same standard to those it admires as to those it despises. DM