WSM: The ANC and MTN are circling the plughole
This article was first published in WSM’s JAUNDICED EYE column on PoliticsWeb.
Key topics:
ANC and MTN face fallout from deep ties with Iran and each other
US grand jury probes MTN over alleged terror-linked activities
SA’s Iran stance strains US relations, risking diplomatic backlash
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By William Saunderson-Meyer
The ANC and MTN Group are like debris circling a plughole. Each orbit is faster than the last. Every circuit draws them closer to disaster.
Both are caught in the vortex of an Iranian whirlpool unleashed by the United States. The liberation movement and the telecoms giant — bound at the top by executives who shuttle between party and boardroom — are beginning to grasp the steep costs of their embrace of Tehran.
The diplomatic fiasco of South Africa’s defence chief pledging political and military solidarity with Iran against the US and Israel was no impulsive slip by a rogue general. It reflects a deeper pattern in which, many believe, Tehran rewards its political allies with covert funding and commercial partners with privileged access to deals. It is also part of the murky manoeuvrings of influential Islamist sympathisers at the highest levels of the Department of International Relations & Cooperation (DIRCO) and the Department of Defence (DoD).
It is still unclear whether General Rudzani Maphwanya’s actions were a calculated signal from the ANC-led Government of National Unity (GNU) to Washington, or simply a case of disastrously bad timing. Many media commentators, along with the DA and other opposition parties, have labelled him a ‘rogue general’, demanding his early retirement, resignation, or cashiering. But the evidence suggests he is no outlier.
The flurry of contradictory statements from the DoD, DIRCO, and the Presidency paints the following picture: while the military does not set foreign policy — that’s the prerogative of the President and DIRCO — the General’s views were consistent with those of Defence Minister Angie Motshekga, DIRCO Minister Ronnie Lamola, and President Cyril Ramaphosa. The misstep lay in the timing and the language he used. His declarations of revolutionary solidarity were reported widely and landed precisely as Ramaphosa’s team was trying to negotiate relief from US trade tariffs.
The Presidency described the trip as ‘ill-advised’ at such a sensitive diplomatic moment and lamented that the General had not been ‘more circumspect’ in his choice of words. Crucially, however, it did not disavow his sentiments. Motshekga was more spirited: there was ‘nothing rogue’ about the visit, which she had authorised in 2024, and the General had ‘done nothing wrong’.
Motshekga further argued that the fallout had been exaggerated by media coverage and regional sensitivities, claiming the remarks had been taken out of context. Declaring this to be her final word on the matter, she said she had since met with Maphwanya and was satisfied with his report. There was also a note of grievance: the General’s words were delivered ‘confidentially’ in what was meant to be a closed bilateral engagement; he had not spoken to the media — it was the Iranians who had issued details of the discussions.
Maphwanya, appointed by Ramaphosa and sharing Venda kinship — a detail never inconsequential in race-conscious South Africa — has a history of anti-US obstruction. Diplomatic sources say that US participation in last month’s Shared Accord civil emergency exercise in the Free State and last year’s Africa Aerospace and Defence Exhibition in Johannesburg were effectively blocked because he delayed signing off the necessary paperwork until US involvement became logistically impossible.
The SANDF controversy shows how the ANC’s recklessness is endangering South Africa just as President Trump hardens his stance against those aligned with America’s enemies. MTN’s growing woes in the US reveal the structural depth of our entanglement with Tehran, a slow-moving undertow that Washington’s prosecutors are now determined to map and confront.
This week, the US Department of Justice launched a grand jury investigation into MTN’s conduct in Afghanistan and Iran, triggering a share price crash that at one point wiped out R30 billion in shareholder value.
MTN already faces four US Anti-Terrorism Act civil damages lawsuits from families of American soldiers killed or injured in Iranian-backed terrorist attacks in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. They claim MTN traded with Iranian front companies linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, thus indirectly but knowingly supporting terrorist activities that led to thousands of US casualties in Iraq between 2011 and 2016.
Turkish telecoms rival Turkcell is also pursuing a landmark case in South Africa, claiming MTN used bribery and corruption to edge it out of Iran’s first private cellphone licence. Turkcell went further in a US filing, alleging MTN leveraged ‘high-level political influence within the SA Government’ to back Iran’s nuclear position at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). At the time, MTN’s chairperson was Cyril Ramaphosa. Its current chair, Mcebisi Jonas, also happens to be South Africa’s special envoy to the US — the one who cannot get a diplomatic visa to help ‘reset’ the relationship with Trump.
MTN is playing it down. CEO Ralph Mupita insists that the company has not been accused of wrongdoing, dismissing the affair as legacy ‘noise’. The group also leans heavily on an independent investigation it commissioned more than a decade ago, which found no evidence supporting the bribery and IAEA claims.
But MTN should not be too cocky. The federal probe signals that Washington considers the company’s conduct a matter of national security, and grand juries approve indictments in 98% of cases. Also, a grand jury has hefty tools at its disposal for prising open cans of worms. It can subpoena witnesses, phone records, and all manner of documents — including from abroad — and its findings carry immense prosecutorial weight.
For MTN, the implications are stark. If convicted for providing material support to terrorism, it would face crippling fines, exclusion from the US market, and possible disconnection from global financial systems. Its directors, executives, and even major shareholders, past and present, could face scrutiny for complicity or wilful negligence, and possible personal criminal charges.
As a National Security Network analysis notes: ‘The investigation will reveal the full extent of the illicit partnership structured between Ramaphosa’s ANC and Iranian generals and their proxies. It also places General Rudzani Maphwanya’s visit with Iranian generals — who directly control MTN-Irancell and its profits — in an entirely different light. The Grand Jury investigation explains why Mcebisi Jonas was rejected as Ramaphosa’s choice as his Special Envoy to the US: Jonas was already under criminal investigation by the US Justice Department when Ramaphosa nominated him as Special Envoy.’
The MTN imbroglio is inseparable from the ANC’s Iran policy because the company’s most controversial years coincided with its leadership being a revolving door of senior ANC figures and allies. Ramaphosa was MTN chairperson from 2001 to 2013, presiding over the period when MTN Irancell was established, when allegations of bribery and influence-peddling surfaced, and when South Africa’s votes at the IAEA mysteriously but consistently shifted in Tehran’s favour.
At the same time, Phuthuma Nhleko — who had close business ties with Ramaphosa— was MTN’s chief executive (2002–2011) and returned as executive chair immediately after Ramaphosa stepped down. Nhleko has also been named in US court papers alongside Irene Charnley — a former National Union of Mineworkers unionist — as having overseen, or at least acquiesced in, the bribery strategy that allegedly secured MTN its 49% stake in Irancell.
The result is a seamless overlap in time, an intertwined web of political and corporate entanglement stretching back almost two decades. This is what Washington’s prosecutors will now try to unpick.
As Turkcell’s complaint in a US court put it: ‘MTN leveraged high-level political influence within the South African government to ensure that South Africa would support Iran’s nuclear positions at the IAEA’ — a period overlapping directly with Ramaphosa’s chairmanship and Nhleko’s stewardship of MTN.
From the halls of the Presidency — where ‘His Excellency’ is now the standard usage of a fawning retinue — to corporate boardrooms, party loyalty, kinship ties, and mutual back-scratching are the norm. But mounting turbulence with the US is fraying these cosy cabals. As the flotsam and jetsam swirl, South Africa faces a reckoning just beginning to unfold.
This article was first published in WSM’s JAUNDICED EYE column on PoliticsWeb and is republished with permission.