EDINBURGH — Cyril Ramaphosa always knew he had a tough job on his hands when it came to cleaning up corruption within the ANC. The difficulties have become uncomfortably apparent in the glare of the international media, with the Financial Times telling its global audience that Ramaphosa faces serious challenges from protesting workers and a sickly state sector. Rolling blackouts are a visible sign of endemic problems within the state-owned utility Eskom, while evidence of greedy officials sucking vast sums from taxpayers’ coffers has spilled out into the open through public investigations. – Jackie Cameron
By Thulasizwe Sithole
As South Africa was “plunged into darkness” it became apparent that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s honeymoon is truly over, writes David Pilling for the Financial Times.
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“One year into his presidency, Eskom, South Africa’s state electricity ‘provider’, has begun rolling blackouts across the industrialised nation of 56m people. This week, Eskom, which produces virtually all the country’s electricity, said it would cut 4,000 megawatts of power – its official capacity is 45,000MW – because of the unforeseen loss of six generating units,” he says.
“Eskom’s announcement came just days after Mr Ramaphosa disclosed a plan to break the loss-making entity into three divisions (generation, transmission and distribution), raising suspicion of sabotage. Could the heavily unionised fiefdom be sending a message of displeasure about a reorganisation that could lead to job losses and privatisations?
“The alternative to sabotage is hardly more encouraging: Eskom has been so run down and mismanaged that its infrastructure is collapsing. It is a gargantuan $30bn in debt. Either way, Mr Ramaphosa is struggling to keep the lights on,” Pilling tells the FT’s influential global audience.
The hope among millions of South Africans, alarmed that their country was becoming a mafia state, was that Ramaphosa could reverse the rot, but the scale of the task and the formidable obstacles in his path have become all too apparent.
Evidence of South Africa’s “sorry slide” include:
- At the so-called Zondo Commission of inquiry, Angelo Agrizzi gave lurid evidence of bribes handed out like ;monopoly money’ to government officials. The former chief operating officer of Bosasa, a domestic logistics company filmed himself in a vault full of cash from which he said up to $444,000 was doled out in payouts every month.
- Agrizzi told the inquiry, testimony from which was beamed live across a drop-jawed nation, that he funnelled a monthly $22,000 to Jacob Zuma’s close friend Dudu Myeni, the former chair of South African Airways.
- The board of the Public Investment Corporation, the state pension fund manager, resigned en masse after a whistleblower accused four of its nine board members of wrongdoing. The fund, which manages $145bn of assets on behalf of millions of retired civil servants, teachers and nurses, has been accused of investing money in businesses linked to politically connected figures in the ANC.
Allegations of corruption cut to the core of the ANC, says the FT, while in KwaZulu-Natal gangland-style killings characterise a battle by local ANC cadres fight to retain their grip over state resources.
The FT commends Ramaphosa for some progress in excising the rot.
“Mr Ramaphosa has made some headway. He has swept out the previously compromised management at many of the state-owned entities. He has appointed a new director of public prosecutions to an organisation that, under its previous leadership, could be counted on to leave close associates of Mr Zuma alone,” writes Pilling.
“At the annual state of the nation address this month, Mr Ramaphosa said he would set up a unit to investigate allegations of state capture. No one, he pledged, would be immune from prosecution. His hope is to do enough to secure a strong mandate in May’s general elections. After that he should have more power to root out the dirt and take on vested interests.
“One thing should have become obvious. The rot goes much deeper than the Gupta family, whose influence over Mr Zuma was at the heart of state capture allegations. The Guptas became a bogeyman, not to say a scapegoat. But if the ANC wants to see the true cause of South Africa’s deep-seated problems, it should look in the mirror. Assuming, of course, there is sufficient light,” adds Pilling.
