President Cyril Ramaphosa has publicly rapped Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula over the knuckles for allowing her ANC friends to have a free ride on a state flight to Zimbabwe. In statement at the weekend, he said her salary would be paid into the Solidarity Fund for three months as punishment. And, he has ordered the ANC to pay for the costs of the flight.
In most governments, the minister of defence is a high-ranking official within the party and government. There’s no doubt that publicly admonishing one of your senior officials sends out a very clear statement that this kind of behaviour is not condoned.
In July CR ‘allowed’ his spokesperson, Khusela Diko, to take ‘special leave’ after her husband, Thandisizwe, was allegedly caught with his snout in the pot of funds allocated to Covid-19 personal protective equipment. In April, President Ramaphosa placed Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams on leave – and docked pay – after she broke Covid-19 lockdown rules.
South Africans, meanwhile, are waiting for law enforcers to round up senior ANC officials who are clearly corrupt, with damning testimony at the Zondo commission into state capture lending weight to evidence in the public domain. Hermione Cronje, of the National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate, indicated that September would see the first headline-grabbing arrest. With a few days left in the month, the country is watching with bated breath.
PS: Listen carefully to this chapter of ‘Cyril Ramaphosa: The Road to Presidential Power’ and you’ll end up realising that those who under-estimate South Africa’s president do so at their peril. Biographer Anthony Butler exposes how CR’s negotiation skills were put to the test in the mid-1980s against a powerful, far better resourced opponent – and found not to be wanting. Some great negotiating tips for the rest of us, too. https://iono.fm/e/930899.
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