Karma’s a bitch for BOSASA-linked former speaker Mapisa-Nqakula: Patrick McLaughlin
As South Africa's election date of 29 May draws near, the ANC, once esteemed, appears in disarray, hosting political opportunists seeking refuge. Amidst the scramble for power and wealth, revelations of corruption stain the party's fabric. Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, entangled in bribery allegations, embodies this decay. Her past affiliations with scandal-ridden entities like Dyambu Operations further tarnish her reputation. As the nation awaits justice, the election looms, promising both hope and apprehension for the future.
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By Patrick McLaughlin*
The closer one gets to the 29 May, the greater become the writhings of a party obviously in decay, the once glorious ANC descending into a home for a number of political hooligans on the run looking for cover.
It's all about money, of course, but the exit of some from the election stage is most welcome. With more dropouts to come, what we are watching now is the usual round of witch-hunting that precedes an election – but this time the ANC has exceeded all expectations in seamy disclosures.
Aside from the very top brass, this being the President, Deputy President and the Speaker of the House who only deal in millions plus, once any MP once appointed by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mabula he or she is likely to be earning, on present numbers, about R1.2m p.a. before housing, vehicle, and travel perks. All this is apart from any income that an MPs may receive from their own side businesses which should be declared but is more often not.
New cabinet
This is not a good time in Parliament, of course. A time when the future is decided in five-year cycles; a time of bargaining; deals on future party relationships; and a final reckoning with party bosses since they appoint MPs – a time when the kid's school fees, the trip to Dubai and the wife's new Mercedes 350 all depend on a loyalty horse bet.
The Speaker of the House, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, in the meanwhile has been the person entrusted by the ANC to answer the Constitutional Court's call to introduce electoral reform on this subject and cut down on the culture of these party-only appointments. For two years she has played cat and mouse on the subject of oversight and reform, working in conjunction with Home Affairs Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi.
Reluctantly, the ANC finally agreed for independent MPs to stand in the forthcoming elections and Mapisa-Nqakula and her parliamentary committee produced the Electoral Reform Amendment Bill, the first draft being thrown out by Concourt as a poor attempt and the second accepted only for one year with more revisions called for.
Humpty Dumpty
Election time is also a time when the bad eggs in a political party tend to rat on each other; an example now being the final demise of Mapisa-Nqakula, standing accused of receiving millions in bribe money when minister of defence in 2018. As was heavily publicised, she told SAPS when they called to serve their warrant of arrest that nobody could arrest her as Speaker. The officers retired in confusion until a High Court decision explained that they could do so. The nation awaited.
Oddly enough her first attempt to halt her own arrest was in the 2019 she used the same modus operandi of claiming that she was above the law. She was accused by NPA in that matter of receiving bribes as Minister of Correctional Services, money from the late Gavin Watson in the multi-million Bosasa scandal. Again, this was money in the millions but the company she was keeping at that time gives a clue to Mapisa-Nqakula's background.
Remember when
A grouping of eminent ANC Women's League formed in a meeting at Mapisa-Nqakula's home, around 1995, an entity called Dyambu Operations which included Mapisa-Nqakula as Minister of Correctional Services and the former Speaker in Parliament, Baleka Mbete. The directors also included Lindiwe Sisulu, Nomvula Mokonyane, Lindiwe Maseko and five others. It appears that the Watson family maintained close ties with Dyambu Operations and also Mapisa-Nqakula, all of which is detailed in the State Capture Report.
Dyambu Operations started immediately providing services to prisons in the same year by establishing the Bosasa Youth Development Centres as juvenile detention facilities in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Social Development. In 2004, the company received its first major government contract when the Department of Correctional Services appointed it to provide catering services to the prison system. Dyambu is estimated to have received government tenders to the value of R12 billion between 2003 and 2018.
All Dyambu Operations directors claimed, including Mapisa-Nqakula, that they never received one cent in dividends despite Gavin Watson's Bosasa securing such lucrative government contracts over those years.
Repeat performance
The events surrounding the subsequent Bosasa investigations led to Mapisa-Nqakula's departure scot-free from that ministry and her subsequent appointment as Minister of Defence, a position in which she managed to partially destroy the SANDF as a fighting force and where the current 2023 bribery accusations arose. Her continued ineptitude in this post led to her departure from Defence and for the last two and a half years since, President Ramaphosa has found a home for her in Parliament as Speaker of the House.
Since her appointment, she has used her position in Parliament to quietly white-ant the progress of anti-corruption moves on the part of herself and her colleagues in the ANC. This particularly refers to many of those persons named in the Zondo Commission Report, in which Mapisa-Nqakula features in a leading role for a whole chapter. In similar manner, she allowed the Pahla Pahla Report to run into parliamentary mud.
Accused and accuser
Both these reports were commissioned by her when Parliament was instructed to get to the bottom of corrupt practices. Now with the speaker herself arrested on corruption charges, all that seems a little absurd. Once again, most matters are shrouded in the mystery of Gavin Watson's death; the findings in both the State Capture Report and the Pahla Pahla Report and ANC directives, all such matters being touched by the presence of Mapisa-Nqakula.
On the whole most outsiders are ignorant on the powers exercised by the Speaker, so little was said at the time on her appointment to this post – most accepting that she had been shuffled into a backroom job. Consequently, her appointment turned out to be a masterstroke by the ANC Executive.
Diluted
It must also have occurred to Chief Justice Zondo where the blockage was on his report on State Capture. Both he and Mapisa-Nqakula had crossed swords together over the Bosasa investigations and her apparent lying and her arrogance in giving evidence would have been remembered by him. One senses his irritation, later expressed in anger, on the delay by Parliament to even make the first step in response to all the exposés of corruption in his report and during televised interviews.
The position of Speaker of the House, in normal times, demands a high moral stance and the ability to stand firm as neutral in times of argument but Mapisa-Nqakula has been quite obviously "anybody's for the right sum" throughout her career. In the UK, the USA, and most European countries such an event as the arrest of the speaker would have pre-empted the fall of Ramaphosa and his ANC alliance but in South Africa, inured to corruption, the arraignment seems a non-event.
The election count down now continues in a better light with the parties now squaring up for the big day. Hopefully, a few more rotten apples will drop out the race as Ramaphosa rushes more late legislation through Parliament to beat the falling sword.
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Patrick McLaughlin* is the editor of parlyreportsa.com