In their weekly chat Chris Steyn and political commentator Solly Moeng dissect President Cyril Ramaphosa’s tough week on several fronts: The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is seeking answers from his very influential former adviser, Dr Bejani Chauke, particularly in relation to WhatsApp chats with a notorious late taxi boss; his close friend and CODESA co-star, US Ambassador Roelf Meyer has been accused of political interference in Apartheid-era prosecutions; and election pollsters predict former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP could be heading for an outright majority KZN in next week’s Local Government Elections (LGEs). “I think that the only way that South Africa and the Presidency of South Africa can be saved, can be rescued, would be for serious political change, for people to go in there and change the system so that nobody ever comes in there with charming English, who wants to be hugged and who can hug you, and then who goes rogue on us and there's nothing we can do about them because the systems protect them,” says Moeng. Meanwhile, the President has resorted to door-to-door campaigning in KZN. .Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.176)Two commissions of inquiry unearthing the secrets of two South African governments. With me is Solly Moeng to talk about the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Police and Political Capture and the Kamphepe Commission of Inquiry into Failure to Prosecute Truth and Reconciliation Commission cases. Welcome, Solly.Solly Moeng (00:26.994)Hello Chris, hi, lovely to see you again.Chris Steyn (00:31.138)President Cyril Ramaphosa's, very influential former adviser, Dr Benjani Chauke…The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. They are seeking answers from him in relation to WhatsApp chats with a notorious late taxi boss.Solly Moeng (00:52.146)Yeah, I think it's about time and I hope that he's not just going to limit himself to issuing a statement or written responses to the Commission. Look, this is a regulation 10.6 of the Commission which requires them to, which requires people who are issued with it to respond to questions and I don't think that the Commission would issue such a regulation or notice to peripheral unimportant individuals. I think they're doing it because the information that has come out of those WhatsApp messages is compelling. And this is a very important person to Ramaphosa. Look, he was the fundraiser ahead of the 2027 CR 17, the so-called CR 17. He became a formal government Ramaphosa advisor in 2018. And I think he stayed around 2022, 2023. So he was in. He knew what was going on.But he hasn't left. I mean, he might have resigned formally from the job, but he remained some kind of informal advisor to the president for long after he left into the 2023s. He knows the secret. He was involved in the famous journey to go and arrest the people who apparently stole money from Phala Phala. He used State resources that he wasn't supposed to use. He had access to State intelligence to really hide what one would expect to be highly classified information through proximity to the president. So I think it makes sense, especially the fact that he was discussing apparently very highly important information with the dead taxi boss…I think that the Commission has got every right to say, wait a minute, tell us more, we have more questions for you. Has he exposed the presidency? Was he acting alongside the presidency? Was he acting for the presidency? I mean, this is a man who's also in the NEC of the ANC and he claims somewhere that he has never been to Phala Phala which is hard to believe.Chris Steyn (02:54.84)People often wondered whether he was acting on behalf of the president or on his own behalf in certain cases, especially when he was envoying across Africa and speaking to African presidents.Solly Moeng (03:10.514)I think it's very unlikely that the president or the president's CEO both were not aware that this man was going around. This man was sort of enclosed to the president. He was the fundraiser. And there are also rumours that maybe he was part of bringing that money onto Phala Phala. That's why he claims he's never been on the farm. He wouldn't have been going around. I don't know if he was traveling privately, in a private jet or commercially, was funded, whether he had a state passport, all of that stuff you know. I mean everything, even though there's no proof yet of course, everything points to this man acting for the president, Ramaphosa, both when he was formerly employed in the presidency as advisor and after when he is supposed to have been volunteering for the president. So then suddenly this president who came here with clean governance to clean up - of course I never believed him personally, I never did. Okay, he still hasn't told us what he had when he was shadowing Zuma. There's no way that he would have been not allowed into some of the meetings that were happening with the Guptas. So there's a continuity between the previous president of Zuma for which we still have a lot of questions, and he's been doing everything to dodge accountability. And I don't know why he has not been charged with what happened during that time. Ramaphosa was there. Ramaphosa came out as the clean guy, the New Dawn person, you know, but Ramaphosa's own legacy is going down the drain. I guess soon he is going to walk away from the presidency. And I think that in terms of clean governance, he'll have zero to take…Solly Moeng (04:55.893)So all these dodgy people: Zuma had dodgy people around him, Ramaphosa has dodgy people around him, supposedly dodgy people around him. And I think that I really do hope that the Madlanga Commission gets to get the answers and they must never be dribbled into not doing what they must do. Because it's a very difficult place to be at for commissions if you think about it. Because they are appointed by the president, the president determines the terms of reference and they must return the report with recommendations to the president. I mean, it's a good thing that this particular commission has had some activity of arrests and things of some of the peripheral, mid-peripheral people, but there are still people who are AWOL, who have been named, who have not been called. So I think that Madlanga must also know that he has his own reputation and the reputation of this commission is not just going to rely on the people he called, it's also going to rely on the people he did not call, that he should have called.Chris Steyn (05:57.519)I'm looking at Dr. Benjani Chauke's X account. He describes himself as an internationalist, Pan-Africanist, political advisor, special envoy, strategist, philanthropist, proud member of the African National Congress. And there is a very interesting post that he mad:. I have become used to my name being deliberately used to test people's craft to distort reality and create a repository of falsehoods. No lie can live forever. The time spent on feeding these hateful imaginations could be used for more meaningful acts. In the fullness of time, everything else will become clearer.Solly Moeng (06:48.964)God, this is a joke. In the fullness of time, who's being played here? Look, of course these people will say stuff like this. Somebody like that would say these things. And this has told some truth. He's an advisor, strategic advisor. He's an envoy of Ramaphosa. He should have finished his sentences. He didn't. He's the guy who was a fundraiser for Ramaphosa. You should say these things clearly. And the circles of raising funds for politicians of political causes, it's always very murky, you know, it's like not everything is like above board, you know…But I think that we should be concerned as we are with whether or not South Africa was shortchanged because you have all these institutions that have been created around the presidency of South Africa and then you have all these shadowy figures who operate in the proximity, more of parallel figures, so. I mean there's no, there are no lines of accountability. There are lines of accountability when you act within the institutions, the minute you step out of the institutions, but still you still work for or with the institutions, but you're outside, there's no line of let's call this man to the parliament for instance to report, to answer questions. So this is where we are at. We're dealing with presidencies that have too many murky characters playing alongside them. If we think of the business person...from Zimbabwe who apparently died in a helicopter crash recently. He was also seen walking next to Ramaphosa. This guy was wanted for stuff in South Africa, okay. He was involved, supposed to be involved in some really, really murky business in South Africa. And he was seen with Ramaphosa. I mean, you know Ramaphosa disappointed me. And he disappointed many South Africans. But I think we also forget that the president is also an employee of a political party in the country…Solly Moeng (08:47.317)A system, which I think must change. So we often say, yeah, Ramaphosa is not taking decisions, yeah, Ramaphosa this, that…of course it's true. We can take responsibility away from him. But he also reports to a political party. There's no way that the political party is sitting there saying, we know what he's doing, you don't know what he's doing. Of course it's a very divided political party. It has always been that the policy describes it as a broad church. But the fact is, the president, there are certain things that he goes to the party because it's part of the top leadership of the party. And the party, I've said it before, if you sit around the table there, you'd want to be there with some of those characters who must still tell us what happened with BOSASA, for instance, State Capture, you know, a lot of other things. So I think that the only way that South Africa and the presidency of South Africa can be saved, can be rescued, would be for serious political change, but for people to go in there and change the system so that nobody ever comes in there with charming English, who wants to be hugged and who can hug you, and then who goes rogue on us and there's nothing we can do about them because the systems protect them. We need to have a conversation about the systems that enable these things to happen. We've had 32 years of post-democracy in South Africa. We have fine institutions that many African countries don't have, but each one of these institutions, including the presidency, have shown over and over again that they are vulnerable to being weakened, to be abused, repurposed to serve the interests of making criminals. Accountability is needed and change is needed.Chris Steyn (10:28.6)Solly, I hope there is not another medical emergencySolly Moeng (10:38.259)Alright. We can't count on that one. It seems like it always works. It's almost like there are always doctors out there. I wonder if it's the same doctor or the same WhatsApp group of doctors who are ready to give these people reason to not be accountable to the Republic. And I still think that doctors who do these things must be tested, they must be called, they must be punished. If they have to have their licenses to operate in South Africa taken away, it must be, they must be taken away because they act against the interests…Solly Moeng (11:09.757)…of what is good for this Republic. So we'll see where he runs, how he runs, how he hides, if he manages to do all of that, and whether or not the Madlanga Commission will manage to bring him in one way or another.Chris Steyn (11:21.07)Well, President Cyril Ramaposa will be remembered for inaction, but I noticed that he was quick to rush off to KwaZulu-Natal to do door-to-door campaigning because the polls are showing that former President Jacob Zuma's MKP is heading for a majority in that province.Chris Steyn (11:43.234)The voters must be surprised to see the president door-to-door.Solly Moeng (11:48.724)I think the president must do what he must because obviously he goes to KZN wearing the ANC hat and the ANC hopes that he can still save them but I think that aura that he used to have when he first became president is totally gone especially in KZN. KZN Zuma is the existing, the reigning traditional African leader. People respect him…. Well, for South Africa he's not the person. I've said it over and again. But he is the man. The former king of the Zulus died, Mangosotho died, and the current king is still growing up. So Zuma is the man. And people, no matter what you say, they still ask him…But the ANC has messed up. Zuma’s party is going to, obviously, the polls also say, it's going to be very fascinating to see how low the ANC is going to fall this time. It's going to fall, there's no doubt about it.Chris Steyn (12:54.68)Solly, over the years much has been said about the close friendship between President Cyril Ramaphosa and apartheid Minister Roelf Meyer, who is now the US ambassador. Now we've heard at the Kamphepe Commission of Inquiry a claim that Mr Meyer interfered in TRC prosecutions.Solly Moeng (13:15.761)Look, my attitude about the TRC is about how South Africa, the post-apartheid South Africa came to be, is that there was a stalemate, okay? No party was... The anti-apartheid guys were never going to win a conventional war against the South African Defence Force of the time. But also the South African economy was on its knees because of sanctions and international isolation, et cetera.So there was wisdom in the two parties coming together to say, Let's talk. And inevitably there was going to be a level, a basket of compromises that would not be tasteful to the average man and woman in the street. They were crimes, what we ordinarily call crimes committed by people who fought against Apartheid. There were crimes that were committed by people who defended Apartheid. I mean, if you think of people also mentioned the fellow who was at some point with the IDP, who is known to have famously thrown a bomb at a church, and people got killed. I'm sure those families also want answers. So my attitude would have been, you know what, let bygones be bygones… I mean, this reviving of those criminal charges which probably should have happened, but…, it was a compromise. People think that only one side committed crime, but both sides committed crime. Individuals on both sides committed crimes. It's possible that Meyer, of course he was with the National Party at the time, he would have been part of whatever discussions, of course, that being denied, that could have happened to say, look, okay, fine, we're going to work together to build a post-Apartheid…, but this and this and this is off the table. I'm sure those things happened, and I think we have to accept, we have to have the maturity to accept certain things we agreed upon that would have prolonged the war.Iif we think about what's going on between Israel and Palestine.Solly Moeng (15:12.051)We keep saying to the Palestinians, I mean, people in Africa, yeah, just keep fighting, keep fighting. But we didn't keep fighting. We sat down and negotiated. So those guys, otherwise they're going to fight in perpetuity. So we sat down, agreed to disagree. And some of those things, as I say, they're not tasteful, but that's the price we pay. So if you want to go in the pit latrine and dig out what was hidden in it, I think that's going to be marked on the faces of a lot of people. I mean, I'm not saying it was right, it was wrong. It was the result of ending what could have been an unfinished, you know, environment of conflict, conflict bombs and destruction of infrastructure and all of that. I think that, you know, that's the price we pay and I think we should move on. We should move on. Yeah, it's a big lecture. I don't know why anybody wants to dip in it. But of course, if you dig on your side, you must of others from digging on their side. That's what I'm saying.Chris Steyn (16:15.214)Shocking testimony though from former Vlakplaas Commander, Colonel Eugene de Kock, or Prime Evil, as he became known.Solly Moeng (16:23.805)Yeah, I think that man has nothing to lose. I probably would do the same if I were him, because he was the operative. He's the guy who received instructions from the big bosses, some of whom ended up with Nobel Peace Prizes, and some of them became ministers. Even the former minister of foreign affairs was going around saying, there's nothing wrong in South Africa. They all became ministers…and people like this man, you know, had to pay. They were the ones who were made to pay because they did… but they received instruction from somebody and again you know what… I think he's saying these things not necessarily out of spite but because it's true he paid, he spent I don't know how many years in jail okay but the people who gave him instructions are out there…So it's a tough thing. I think this is a tough one. But I think some of the things, the things we don't have a voice that's able to be almost like a Mandela voice kind. Guys, this is where we are. This is what we needed to do. It's painful, there's pain all over. Nobody owns historic pain. Pain in South Africa is all over, in all communities. Fear, suspicion, you know. I think that we need to move on, otherwise we're going to end up like all those countries that have war, war over years, over years, the wars that don't end. We don't want to be that country. Let us build, because we still have an opportunity to build an amazing country for everybody, not for one group of people, but for everybody. But if you go to...and start digging into those areas, we're not going to make a forward.Chris Steyn (18:18.158)Solly, your rant of the week.Solly Moeng (18:24.133)It's still the people who keep saying, you know, my parents voted ANC, I'm going to vote for the ANC. I'm afraid of Helen Zille. Helen Zille is racist. Helen Zille lives in Cape Town. She wasn't coming here. I think South Africans, you know what, we complain about politicians. We complain about the political environment, the things that do not seem to change. But we keep doing the same things over and over again. People do not take responsibility for their votes. There's still too much emotion in South African election, South African mindset. We need to say what do I want? I want my street lights to work. I want garbage to be collected. I want for there to be regular policing against criminals in my streets. I live in an area where I can't walk in the streets anymore. I can't even cycle out of my home because there are criminals all over. So we shouldn't vote for people who are not going to do the work they must at local level. We must stop this emotional thing. Apartheid is gone. Apartheid is not coming back there and nobody has the power, the will to bring back Apartheid. We need to hold hands across the board as South Africans and vote for the country that we have no choice but to protect and build together into the future. And it's not about winners taking all zero sum games. Nobody is going to walk away with everything and be able to live forever with it without having to look back. I want to quote one thing, if you allow me, somebody that probably few people quote, the former Russian president before this one, Boris Yeltsin.Solly Moeng (19:53.877)That's it. He said, you can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it forever. And I add, without having to look over your shoulder from time to time, we need to build, to move on, acknowledge the pain that we come from and not think that our pain is more important than the pain of the other. We can't change yesterday. We can change the future.Chris Steyn (20:21.602)Thank you. That was political commentator Solly Moeng, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn.Solly Moeng (20:30.324)Thank you Chris..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. 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