Tim Flack: The unelected minister running South Africa from the shadows

Key topics:Sooliman acts like a minister, running a parallel state in South Africa.Gaza flights controversy exposes contradictions in his narrative and control.The NGO wields power without mandate, bypassing democratic accountability..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 at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Tim Flack.The Unelected MinisterSouth Africa has never lacked for political theatre, but the recent CapeTalk Radio interview in South Africa with Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, the founder of Gift of the Givers, offers something altogether different. It is the rare moment when an interview does not simply reveal a controversy. It reveals a parallel system of authority that has been allowed to grow unchecked, unchallenged, and disturbingly unaccountable. Gift of the Givers known as Waqful Waqifin in Arabic, is based out of South Africa but runs facilities and staff in Gaza, The so called ‘West Bank’, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.Listening to Sooliman, one hears not the voice of a humanitarian leader. One hears the tone of a man who believes he sits at the apex of South Africa’s decision-making architecture. The performance is astonishing. He speaks as though government departments report to him, not the other way around.This is the posture of a man who has become far more than the founder of an NGO. It is the posture of someone who behaves like an unelected minister. This while Ministers Leon Schreiber and Ronald Lamola sit quietly and allow it.A Humanitarian Who Gives Himself Cabinet-Level AuthorityThroughout the interview, Sooliman describes his role in the Gaza flights controversy with the confidence of a state official. He claims he immediately urged the government to stop the flights. He criticises the Civil Aviation Authority as if he chairs its board. He comments on refugee law, foreign policy, and international obligations as though he represents the Republic at the United Nations.Then, without missing a beat, he proudly details how Gift of the Givers met the arriving passengers, briefed them, advised them, transported them, and even funded their next steps..Read more:.R1m Yach family foundation donation to Gift of the Givers creates rift in SA's Jewish community.It is a contradiction so breathtaking that it exposes something far larger than semantic confusion. South Africa has allowed an NGO to operate as a parallel state. That parallel state has one individual at its head.A Narrative That Contradicts Itself Every Few MinutesSooliman insists the Gaza passengers had no idea they were coming to South Africa. He says they discovered their true destination only in Kenya. This is impossible. No one transits Israel, Egypt, Kenya, and international airline documentation without seeing their final destination printed clearly.He also claims he does not want Palestinians to stay in South Africa, yet he proudly explains how his legal teams briefed them on their visa rights, asylum pathways, and immigration options. That is not discouragement. That is a private immigration service operating outside state authority.He frames the Gaza exit pipeline as “ethnic cleansing”, yet applauds government for shutting down the same supposed escape route. If the flights are an act of forced removal, closing the airspace traps people in the crisis. If they are a lifeline, blocking them is cruel. Both positions cannot be true.The Kenyan Permit That Changes EverythingThis is where the entire narrative folds in on itself. While Sooliman speaks as though these flights appeared mysteriously and caught South Africa unaware, the documentary evidence tells a very different story. The Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority had already issued a full overflight and landing permit for the Global Airways Airbus routing between Johannesburg and Nairobi. It lists the aircraft, the operator, the dates, the routing, the purpose and the approvals. In other words, this was not an ambush. It was a regulated, internationally authorised flight that originated in South Africa and was scheduled to return to South Africa..A flight like this cannot move without South African authorities knowing. ATNS must approve the routing. SACAA must clear the departure. Home Affairs must prepare for the arrival. Kenya cannot authorise the aircraft unless the originating state has already agreed. The paper trail makes it impossible for South Africa to have been “surprised.”And this is why the permit matters. It shatters the fiction that only Sooliman understood what was happening and had to “warn” the government. The state was already structurally and legally aware. The operation could not have taken place otherwise.The Kenyan permit is the quiet piece of bureaucracy that exposes the theatre: South Africa knew, because South Africa had to know.But the contradictions are not a glitch. They are a feature. They reveal that the role he plays is artificial, improvised, and unmoored from constitutional limits.What’s Good for the Goose: Sooliman’s Double Standard on Gazans Entering South AfricaWhat makes Sooliman’s latest outrage even stranger is that he had absolutely no objection when Gazans were arriving in South Africa under his own watch. He celebrated it. He facilitated it. He personally met the flights, briefed the passengers, arranged their accommodation and publicly framed their arrival as a humanitarian victory. Whether it was the early groups of Gaza medical students placed in Cape Town or other charter flights that brought more Gazan people into Johannesburg and Cape Town, he was more than happy to present himself as the compassionate custodian of South Africa’s open door.Not once did he invoke “ethnic cleansing” when he was the one ushering them in. Not once did he warn that their arrival represented some sinister geopolitical plot. When the arrivals elevated his public halo, it was “rescue”, “solidarity” and “humanity”. Yet the moment Gazans leave Gaza and land in South Africa without his choreography or approval, the very same movement of people is suddenly rebranded as a war crime.This is the contradiction at the heart of the performance. When Sooliman is in control, movement is noble. When he is not, movement becomes immoral. It is not moral clarity. It is narrative convenience. It reveals a man deeply invested not in principles, but in being the one who decides which story the country is allowed to hear.The Real Issue Is Power Without MandateIn South Africa today, institutions have grown weak and individuals with charismatic branding have filled the void. Sooliman is the clearest example of this trend. He speaks like a minister, moves like a minister, negotiates like a minister, and is treated by the media as if he has the democratic legitimacy of a minister.But he does not.He is unelected. He is unappointed. He is unaccountable. And the country has quietly allowed him to operate as a parallel authority in everything from refugee management to foreign policy interpretation.This is not humanitarianism. It is governance without consent.A Dangerous Precedent for a Fragile StateSouth Africa cannot survive the gradual outsourcing of state authority to moral celebrities with political ambitions. It cannot hand over its sovereignty to an NGO that believes it has a divine mandate to act above the constitution. And it cannot afford a society where the media, enamoured by a manufactured saintly aura, refuse to interrogate raw power when it is exercised without legitimacy..Read more:.Gaza genocide debate sparks controversy in South Africa after Albanese visit: Marika Sboros.The CapeTalk interview is more than a controversy. It is a wake-up call. It shows what happens when a nation’s institutions grow so fragile that a single unelected individual can emerge as a shadow minister with more soft power than many elected officials.Time to Break the SpellGift of the Givers has mastered the optics of benevolence. That is not in dispute. But optics are not a substitute for democratic accountability. No NGO founder should have this level of informal authority over immigration processes, aviation enforcement, or foreign policy narratives.South Africa has one government. It does not need another that behaves as if it is one.The illusion must break. And the country must have the courage to say what should have been said years ago. A republic cannot be run by an unelected shadow minister selected through brand worship rather than the ballot box.The CapeTalk interview did not damage Sooliman. It revealed him. And it revealed the extent to which South Africa’s sovereignty has been quietly outsourced to a man who believes moral conviction is a substitute for constitutional mandate.It is time to reclaim the state. It is time to reclaim the narrative. And it is time to remember that a democracy has only one government, not a parallel one run from the wings by an individual elevated through reverence rather than responsibility.

Tim Flack: The unelected minister running South Africa from the shadows

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