It was an eventful rainy Thursday afternoon. Workers left their desks to watch the action through their office windows. It was one of the many marches against state capture. On this day, civil society organizations were picketing outside the office of global consultancy McKinsey, right opposite the FORBES AFRICA headquarters in Sandton, South Africa.
McKinsey is one of the many companies, in the country, implicated in alleged corrupt dealings between state-owned power utility Eskom and consultancy firm Trillian. McKinsey and Trillian stood to earn more than $490 million from Eskom.
It has been a year of drama in corporate South Africa. As strange as it may sound, a lot of South Africa’s protests, like this, have one family as the common cause.
Weak-kneed politicians allegedly allowed members of the Indian-born Gupta family to wield undue influence. This influence has gone from meddling with the state’s top jobs to conniving with private and public companies to act in their favor.
Another company in hot water is Bell Pottinger, a British public-relations firm connected to the Guptas by a $130,000-a-month contract. It was stripped of its membership in the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) in the UK, after it was found that the PR agency deliberately fanned racial tensions, with creations like &#8216;white monopoly capital&#8217;, in South Africa, in favor of Zuma, while it worked for the Gupta-owned Oakbay Capital.
“We took this decision because we were not satisfied by the explanations given. We have never passed down such a damning indictment,” says Nicholas Dunn-McAfee, Head of Public Affairs, Policy and Research at PRCA.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2017/12/08/south-african-billionaires-fortune-plunges-2-billion-day-amid-accounting-scandal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: South African Billionaire&#8217;s Fortune Plunges More Than $2 Billion In A Day Amid Accounting Scandal</a>
It gets worse.
For years KPMG South Africa has said it stands for integrity. Instead, the tax, advisory and auditing firm now stands alleged of giving advice so that money can be taken to Dubai to avoid tax payments. They also turned a blind eye to several conflicts of interest while auditing 36 Gupta-linked companies and compiled the so-called South African Revenue Services (SARS) rogue spy unit report which was used as part of the smear campaign against former Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan.
There are consequences.
For KPMG, for example, pressure has been piling. The firm withdrew all its findings in the ‘rogue unit’ report; senior executives, including CEO Trevor Hoole, resigned; and it has been dumped by major clients, among them, Sasfin Bank, Sygnia Asset Management, the energy investment company Hulisani, and the University of the Witwatersrand.
Like the protesters in Sandton, Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer at Sygnia Group, an asset management company, says all involved should be held accountable, stripped of their licenses, fined and even jailed.
“There are no excuses. They did what they did for money. They were not ignorant of what they were doing,” she says.
Opposition political parties, rights groups and private citizens are playing their part to make sure unethical companies are punished. The problem is corporate misgovernance affects the whole country.
<div id="attachment_34798" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34798" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34798" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Alastair-Macduff-Chairman-and-Chief-Executive-Officer-of-the-Turnaround-Management-Association-Southern-Africa.-copy-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="451" />Alastair Macduff, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Turnaround Management Association Southern Africa. (Photo supplied)</div>
South Africa was downgraded to junk status and went into a recession. At the time of writing this article, $1 was equivalent to R14.16 at its worst, it went to about R17 to the dollar. It means business confidence is at an all-time low.
“Businesses are feeling the impact of low investor confidence, weakening exchange rates and high fiscal uncertainty,” says Alastair Macduff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Turnaround Management Association Southern Africa.
“Restoring investor, business and consumer confidence will require a concerted effort to address these pressing issues – and address them in the best interests of the country as a whole,” he says.
Wierzycka agrees.
“In a funny way, what has happened to KPMG and McKinsey is actually very positive… Positive in terms of waking corporate South Africa to what is happening and to the fact that they can no longer sit on the fence and stay silent,” she says.
According to Wierzycka, South Africa’s corporate sector is suffering from a moral crisis.
“The dilemma is, do you change providers based on the fact of they are implicated in state capture even when it’s inconvenient to do so?”
<div id="attachment_34795" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34795" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34795" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mckinsey-strike-501-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />People protests against corruption outside the McKinsey office in Sandton, Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Wierzycka has lived it. She offered Bianca Goodson, former Trillian CEO turned whistle-blower, a job. This after Goodson’s new employer, Sage, accepted her resignation after she told them she was blowing the whistle on her previous employer. Goodson provided documented evidence that the Gupta-linked firm swindled hundreds of millions from state-owned enterprises Transnet and Eskom. Wierzycka called Goodson, and all whistle-blowers, heroes.
“When I heard what Sage did, I was actually breathless. The true heroes of the story of South Africa are the belittled whistle-blowers… Bianca took tremendous risks in disclosing the information she disclosed on Trillian, McKinsey, Eskom and a number of others. It seemed a completely natural thing to reach out to her, if anything else, to reassure her that she is not alone in this fight. When I did, I met a lady who is incredibly competent. So let’s be clear, I gave her a job, not because she is a Trillian whistle-blower but because I encountered a woman of tremendous bravery with a strong moral compass and qualifications that are arms long,” says Wierzycka.
<div id="attachment_34797" style="width: 311px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34797" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34797" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Magda-Wierzycka-Chief-Executive-Officer-at-Sygnia-Group-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="301" height="452" />Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer at Sygnia Group. (Photo supplied)</div>
Goodson has a five-year-old daughter and, according to Wierzycka, she was petrified.
“My biggest concern was her personal safety. If she had died in a random hijacking, no one would think because no one knew her name. So, what I thought was that the most important thing that needed to happen was to get her name out there in the headlines.”
Wierzycka’s good fight doesn’t end there.
Earlier this year, Sygnia started a new money market unit trust and the firm said it will donate 100% of the management fees, earned on the fund, to non-political organizations fighting corruption. Sygnia also fired KPMG when news on state capture allegations broke.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s up to each company to make a choice. In the instance of KPMG, their board of directors make up their own minds as to whether what they’re seeing is what they expect to be seeing from their service provider and how serious they view what the company has done. In the instance of McKinsey, do you honestly want to do business with a company that has robbed South African taxpayers while we have a tiny taxpayer base supporting such vast percentages of the South African population which is living in inequality… Are you happy, morally, to do business with a business like that? That’s a question each board of directors has to ask,” says Wierzycka.
Another problem with some corporate companies is that they use denial as a first response when they are embroiled in a crisis. It creates a bigger mess.
KPMG South Africa, as an example, hired Nhlamu Dlomu, previously Head for People and Change, to clean up the mess as their new CEO. She couldn’t answer many questions posed to her, probably because she wasn’t prepared to be the CEO of one of the four top audit companies in the country that was facing its greatest crisis.
Women CEOs in times of corporate crisis may be a global trend.
A PwC report found that 38% of female CEOs are forced out of the office; compared to 27% of male CEOs. Another study, by Utah State University researchers, found boards are more likely to promote women and minorities to top leadership roles when an organization is in crisis.
“To me, that was a typical response of an international company that thinks  putting a fairly attractive female in front of clients is going to solve the problem… I think that the reason they are losing the battle in the court of public opinion is because they’re arrogant,” says Wierzycka.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/04/01/give-us-water-not-statues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Give Us Water Not Statues</a>
Before firing KPMG, Wierzycka says she advised the audit firm to withdraw the entire ‘rogue unit’ report and they refused.
“I said, ‘let’s talk about the money then, because we know that this is blood money, whether it’s stolen from taxpayers or the farming community in the Eastern Cape. R63 million ($4.43 million) will go a long way towards fighting corruption. So donate all this money to organizations which are fighting corruption in South African courts. At least try to redeem yourself in the eyes of the South African public.’ I was told no…,” recalls Wierzycka.
KPMG only withdrew sections of the report, under questioning in parliament, admitting that it was wrong about the SARS report and that their conclusions and recommendations were incorrect.
Clearly, it will take more than marches in Sandton to bring about change.
<div id="attachment_34801" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34801" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34801" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Sylvester-Chauke-Founder-DNA-Brand-Architects-300x277.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="323" />Sylvester Chauke, Founder DNA Brand Architects (Photo supplied)</div>
<h1>How To Weather A Corporate Storm</h1>
Sylvester Chauke loves to communicate. We meet him in his well-decorated office in Fourways, Johannesburg. As we enter, we are welcomed by multiple awards on the walls behind and in front of his desk. It is like we have entered a trophy factory.
“I don’t know how many awards I have. Not all of them are here but this is all inspiration and it is kudos to the hard work we do,” he says.
This is a world away from where it all started.
At 12 years old he went for a TV commercial audition. He loved it. Since then, he knew he wanted to work in the media industry.
There was research and soul searching. It ushered in a marketing and advertising communications degree, from the University of Johannesburg, and an internship. He never looked back.
Five years ago, he founded DNA Brand Architects; a marketing and brand consultancy company that advises people on how to avoid or deal with corporate crisis. He employs 34 people and counts Vodacom, Edgars, Bonang Matheba, Steers and Wimpy among his clients.
“It is all about taking all these fields of communication, whether it’s broadcasting, advertising, and brand communication, into one space,” says the 36-year-old.
According to Chauke, it is very obvious that there is a corporate communication crisis in South Africa. He says in most businesses, communication is just seen as PR. They send press releases and hope for the best. They don’t plan for a crisis.
“Most businesses don’t think that they have to think and plan for it, they just become overly confident, to some extent quite arrogant, to think that they are such great brands that can sort of overcome anything. We are seeing it right now with the likes of Bell Pottinger, KPMG and McKinsey. It is indicative of that communication is a ‘by the way’ thing,” says Chauke.
It is dangerous. When companies say the wrong thing, they risk losing their clients, or worse, the company. According to Chauke, planning for a crisis isn’t rocket science.
“Most of the time you can anticipate issues. For example, when your financial results come out and they are not good, you should plan what you are going to be saying to the stakeholders about the performance. It is the same if you are going to be retrenching 2,000 people, you need to be prepared.”
Chauke says every business needs a crisis management plan, reviewed annually, for crises they can’t anticipate.
“The biggest challenge that we have is people think because you are a CEO, and you speak to a crowd of 1,000 in a conference, you can handle media. That is so not true. You need an experienced spokesperson to handle that.”
He says Africans should inspire the world.
“I think that if the way that we do business is given a chance and doesn’t get distracted by all the corruption, scandals and corporate blunders, the way we do business would inspire others because we push regardless,” he says.
Maybe this is just the kind of inspiration corporate South Africa needs.

Anger At The Corporate Slippery Slope

Jacob Zuma is a natural born political survivor. On Tuesday South Africa’s president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/08/jacob-zuma-survives-no-confidence-vote-south-african-president" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overcame</a> an eighth no confidence vote, despite the mountain of evidence of corrupt conduct that has emerged in recent months.
But it may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory – for him and most certainly for his party, the African National Congress (ANC). <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2017-08-08-zuma-supporters-celebrate-his-win-outa-considers-legal-action/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Hollow”</a> was the word that one opposition leader, Bantu Holomisa, used afterwards, while the Economic Freedom Fighter’s leader Julius Malema employed a well-known Africa proverb: “When you want to eat an elephant you do it bit by bit”.
Zuma’s political death is proving to be a protracted affair. There was an air of expectation on Tuesday that recent allegations of “state capture” – attested to by a welter of evidence from the so-called <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/06/01/the-new-gupta-emails-are-a-lot-heres-what-they-say-in-5-quick_a_22120706/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#guptaleaks</a> – would be enough to persuade a sufficient number of the members of the ruling ANC to support an opposition-sponsored no confidence vote.
In the event, after a fractious two-hour debate scarred by ugly banter across the floor of the National Assembly, the motion fell short of the 201 votes required to remove Zuma and his cabinet. But yesterday was remarkably different. On the previous seven occasions that the opposition have tabled no confidence votes since Zuma’s power began in 2009, the ANC has remained steadfast in its support for its beleaguered president. Yesterday’s vote was a watershed for the liberation movement that brought an end to apartheid in 1994: around 30 of the 223 ANC MPs who voted yesterday sided with the opposition.
As the ANC’s chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, ruefully observed afterwards, this is true pause for reflection for the ruling party. Never before has such a significant number of the parliamentary caucus rebelled and defied the party whip.
Zuma’s streetwise political skills are well-known. So too is his adeptness at using executive patronage to secure the loyalty of party members as has been made clear in the revelations <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">arising from his links to the Gupta family</a>.
<h2>The secret ballot saga</h2>
But the back story to the unprecedented rebellion within his own party was the method of voting as much as Zuma’s political skullduggery. For the first time, parliament was compelled to allow MPs <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2017-08-07-mbete-allows-secret-ballot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to vote in secret</a>. This followed a <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/251722/bantu-holomisa-explains-parly-rules-on-secret-ballot" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">legal challenge</a> to the rules by Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement.
In its 22 June <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-06-22-read-in-full-concourt-ruling-on-secret-ballot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">judgment</a>, the Constitutional Court – an institutional beacon of excellence and integrity in the context of the “capture” of other state bodies – had held that the speaker of the National Assembly had the discretion to order a secret ballot in exceptional circumstances.
Since the ruling, a number of ANC MPs have gone public with testimony of intimidation and even <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/07/12/makhosi-khoza-s-daughter-receives-death-threats" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">death threats</a> in the case of Makhosi Khoza. In turn, the ANC shot itself in the foot when one region of Zuma’s home province, KwaZulu-Natal, demanded that disciplinary proceedings be brought against Khoza after she had called for Zuma to go. The intervention served to underline the need to depart from the generally established principle of open voting.
Accordingly, speaker Baleka Mbete had little legal choice but to opt for a secret ballot, even though it would encourage dissenting voices among the ranks of the ANC caucus. Politically, she had probably done the political mathematics and, as the national chairperson of the ANC, was confident that regardless of the shield that she said was necessary to protect ANC MPs so that they could vote with their conscience, the numbers would still work out in Zuma’s favour.
And so it proved: 177 MPs voted for the motion, and 198 against (with 9 abstentions). Since the opposition has 151 MPs, at least three of whom were absent through illness, it means that that at least 29 and possibly as many as 35 ANC MPs jumped ship.
<h2>Win-win for the opposition</h2>
But it was a win-win situation for the opposition. Afterwards, in the unseasonably balmy winter’s evening outside the parliament in Cape Town, one after another of the leaders of the opposition spoke cheerfully about the political future and of the health of South Africa’s democracy.
They may have lost the battle, but they feel confident that they will win the war. After all, it is clear that Zuma is now their greatest electoral asset, with <a href="http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2017/05/31/ipsos-poll-zuma-unpopular/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">several polls </a>(including the respected <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-05-19-afrobarometer-trio-of-polls-show-shifting-attitudes-but-voters-would-still-opt-for-anc/#.WYo8na17Gi4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afrobarometer</a>), showing that across race and class, trust in Zuma has collapsed since he was returned to power for a second term in 2014.
Last year, the ANC suffered its first major electoral setbacks since the advent of democracy in 1994 when it <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-revolt-of-south-africas-metropoles-a-revolution-of-rising-expectations-64617" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lost control</a> of three major city governments in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. Now, its political management skills appear to be in disarray as factionalism and deep, painful divisions dominate internal party politics. This is all unfolding in the run-up to what is likely to be a bloody five-yearly <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/venue-anc-54th-national-conference" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">national elective conference</a> in December, at which the ANC will elect a new President of the party to succeed Zuma.
That may or may not mark the start of a new era of renewal for the ANC. But Zuma’s term as President of the country is only due to end in 2019. A lot more damage could be done to the country’s economy and its prospects for growth.
The consequence of that, however, is that the ANC will face the prospect of losing its majority at the national polls for the first time since Nelson Mandela’s historic victory in 1994.
Yesterday may have been a victory for Zuma. But in the longer term it is likely to come to be seen as a major defeat for the ANC. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/richard-calland-182127" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Richard Calland</a>, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape Town
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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No confidence vote: a victory for Zuma, but a defeat for the ANC

Africa is the last true wild frontier in the world; its wildlife racks up more than $30 billion annually.
But, in countries such as Zimbabwe, less money is reaching the government and animal extinction is becoming a reality.
The ruthless killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe sent shockwaves around the world. It raises the question of whether Africa is getting a raw deal for its wildlife.
In 2012, the tourism sector contributed 10% to Zimbabwe’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the projection was that by this year it should have reached 15%. Statistics for this year are only available in 2016 but there has been a surge in tourists, particularly from the United States.
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Some American tourists, though, have been caught on the wrong side of the law by participating in unsanctioned lion hunts.
Johnny Rodrigues, a wildlife conservationist, believes the biggest problem standing in the way of animal conservation in Zimbabwe is corruption.
“In the case of Cecil, an American tourist bribed guides for $55,000 to kill a lion that was at the center of major international research. There are many such cases that go unreported,” he says.
In the past 20 years, the lion population in Africa has been depleted by 30%. As of 2014, it is estimated that there are only 30,000 left on the continent.
Zimbabwe has a population of around 1,600 lions, most of which are kept in protected areas away from hunters. Between 1999 and 2009, it was recorded that 800 lions were killed in legal hunts but it is understood that many more were killed in illegal hunts.
Lions, rhino, elephant, giraffe and buffalo are the most popular targets for hunters, but some lesser known animals are also caught up in the illicit trade.
Langton Masunda, a tour operator in Zimbabwe, says poachers and illegal hunters are more equipped and better funded than government rangers. This gives them an obvious advantage over those trying to save the country’s wild animals.
“They have more sophisticated weaponry, are usually better trained and they have communication equipment that the government does not have,” says Masunda.
Not so long ago, more effort was put into protecting the rhinoceros, but poachers shifted their focus to elephants. Zimbabwe has an elephant population of 85,000, with around 30,000 of those being calves. Because of the demand in the Asian market, poachers targeted the elephant at an industrial scale.
“Water sources were contaminated with cyanide. Hundreds would drop dead and in the process other animals, which the poachers had no use for, died too. Even people in rural communities surviving on the same water sources were affected. What makes it bad is that in many cases locals in poverty stricken communities would assist poachers,” says Masunda.
Although they have a harsh penal system for poaching, countries such as South Africa are havens for illegal hunts.
“Each year, more than 20,000 elephants – possibly up to 35,000 – are killed by poachers for their tusks, which are shipped to ivory markets, predominantly in countries such as China and Thailand. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed in South Africa alone, which, when compared with the 13 killed by poachers in 2007, represents a more than 9,000 percent increase in rhino poaching,” says a World Economic Forum report.
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The spiraling poaching figures are driven by the Asian market. In countries such as China and Vietnam, it is believed the rhino horn has medicinal properties that can cure everything from headaches to cancer. Elephant tusks are crushed into a powder and used to make aphrodisiacs, among other things.
The development of rural communities is also a factor that opens trade links with the rest of the world. It makes smuggling easier.
But, in Southern Africa, there is hope that some of the targeted animals can be saved, especially at the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) that brings together Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Botswana.
KAZA is the world’s largest wildlife park, slightly bigger than Italy.
In 2014, on the Botswana side of the park, President Ian Khama banned hunting to preserve the animals. As an alternative, the country is investing in luxurious camps. Last year alone, it was estimated that tourism brought in $337.5 million. A few greedy tourists with rifles should not be allowed to decimate this important source of income.

The Bullets Killing More Than Animals

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but, the appalling silence of the good people.” This Martin Luther King Jr quote brought courage to Mike Tshishonga’s soul, inspired him to be a whistleblower and ushered in his two worst days.
The first cost him his home and pride, leading to seven years in the wilderness. The second cost him humiliation, vilification and yet another job he loved.
The fury and conflict that raged around Tshishonga belies the peace and quiet of where he was born in 1946; in rural Venda located in Louis Trichardt, a small town nestled in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province; a peaceful place were wild animals roam. Even though the harsh apartheid regime was in force, Tshishonga grew up in a loving home and left to study law. He took King’s quote with him.
He hates crime and corruption. His battle for justice began in 1985, when he was the Secretary of Justice in the old Bantu system. At the time, Venda chiefs carried out ritual murders for strength and power. This was a burden on Tshishonga’s shoulders.
“They wanted human parts. One chief, Ramovha, was involved in these ritual killings. He was tried and found guilty of murder. His friends wanted me to recommend he be removed from the death sentence but I refused,” says Tshishonga.
Tshishonga became detested and resented among Ramovha’s friends and family. But he felt it was the right thing to do. Justice had to prevail.
Another ritual murder occurred; this time involving Chief AA Tshivhase, who was also hung for his crime.
“Tshivhase had a lot of political capital. As a result, parliament passed an act saying the president has the power to demote, transfer or reduce the salary of any public servant without giving any reason.”
This prompted Tshishonga’s dismissal.
“The president had been told that a lot of chiefs were involved in this and I was the problem that needed to be taken care of.”
Tshishonga had fought a losing battle in a place he called home. He left with nothing and had to stay with his in-laws.
“When you are a man and supposed to take care of your family but you can’t, and your mother-in-law has to take up the responsibility, it is traumatic, but pain makes us grow. It is a stepping stone to another level. It is not there to kill one but rather to give strength and greater wisdom,” he says.
After seven years of pain and penury, Tshishonga was rehabilitated in a new democratic South Africa; appointed as the Deputy Director General of the South African Justice Department in 1994.
“I was happy when someone who respected how I had stood up for justice recognized I was right and traced me down for this position. Those were very tough years for me but I will always speak up against wrongdoing,” says Tshishonga.
“During the years when Mandela was the president, everything was smooth. I was responsible for the liquidation division at the department.”
Little did he know, an even worse day was yet to come.
In 2003, Tshishonga was in hot water, again, for opposing the appointment of Enver Motala as liquidator for the Retail Apparel Group (RAG), then worth more than a billion rand. Penuell Maduna, the then Minister of Justice, ordered Tshishonga’s department to appoint Motala as liquidator for RAG. It was to be the biggest liquidation in the country’s history.
“We had a panel that decided which liquidator, out of 300, got which job. This was to avoid corruption because liquidation is a lucrative business. It is not, according to the law of insolvency, the minister who dictates who gets what job.”
“I think Maduna and Motala wanted to share the spoils. As always, I was very vocal about fighting corruption. Maduna then tried to get rid of me but they didn’t have any legal grounds to stand on.”
Tshishonga invoked the Protected Disclosures Act. He lodged a complaint about the irregularity with the Public Protector, the Auditor-General and even Essop Pahad, the then Minister in the Presidency under Thabo Mbeki.
“Essop suggested we sit around the table and address the matter but Maduna did not cooperate with me. No one seemed to care that such corruption and nepotism was taking place,” he says.
Pahad, when contacted by FORBES AFRICA, claims he has no knowledge of the matter.
In October 2003, when it came to light that his objections were going nowhere, he called a press conference.
“I had to become creative. I disclosed the information relating to the impropriety and nepotism of the minister to the whole country.”
Tshishonga was suspended with immediate effect. A disciplinary committee was convened. The suspension lasted nearly four years. This ushered in his second worst day. All hell broke loose.
“Vusi Pikoli, Director-General of the justice department at the time, said they can’t take me back because the trust between me and the department had been broken. They offered me a settlement and I refused. Getting rid of me was not getting rid of corruption,” he says.
Pikoli denies this.
“All I can say is that cases of fraud and corruption, where reported and detected in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development when I was the Director-General, were dealt with,” he says.
The Labour Court ruled Tshishonga be reinstated in early 2004. He returned to his office, unaware that he faced the worst months of his life.
“I would go to the office and no job was coming to me. I had my desk, computer and everything but not work. I would go there, do nothing and leave the office at knockoff time. It was difficult for them to transfer me to another department because it would be against the Protected Disclosures Act. Any person who blows the whistle must not be redeployed because they have raised a concern that needs to be addressed.”
With no work coming his way, he started writing a book Whistleblower: The Mike Tshishonga Story, published in 2010.
“Instead of complaining about it, I decided to spend the time writing a book about the true events so that the outside world knows what happened,” he says.
Nobody spoke to him; he was in the office each day for nearly a year. He finally agreed to a settlement of R3 million (around $200,000) to leave the position. He left the department but not without suing for defamation.
“Maduna has told the media that I am a dunderhead, a relic of the apartheid regime who is a timid public servant and does not belong to the department.”
Tshishonga claimed 12 months’ salary for his trouble. The Labour Court ruled in his favor. He read self-help books and the book of Proverbs in the Bible to help him cope. He says he is strong as steel.
“The word death is not in my vocabulary. By killing another person, you are not giving yourself insurance that you would not die because one way or the other, you will.”
The then spokesperson at the office of the Public Protector, Charles Phahlane, was quoted in the media as saying the Public Protector was not provided with enough information to investigate the matter.
At a forum on November 17, 2010, South Africa’s current Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, said she is encouraged by the existence of whistleblowers.
“I note with a sense of discomfort that one of the conference speakers is Mr Mike Tshishonga, who unsuccessfully approached the Public Protector, before my time, for relief regarding an occupational detriment… His complaint was not upheld by the Public Protector and eventually got such relief from a court of law after a costly and lengthy litigation process,” she said.
Maduna denies the allegations made by Tshishonga.
“Mike is the most timid public servant… At worst he is the sort of person who would not be able to box himself out of a wet paper bag,” he reportedly told a local newspaper.
Tshishonga’s unwillingness to yield to pressure by his corrupt peers shows his true nature. He is currently preparing to blow the whistle on a South African politician in the coming months; and he leaves us with a proverb.
“The scorpion was drowning in water. Somebody picked it up to save it. Once safe, the scorpion stung him. The person asked ‘Why would you do this after I helped you?’ and the scorpion said ‘It is my nature.’”
Let’s hope Tshishonga is not stung.

“Death Is Not In My Vocabulary”

A family man, who stood up for what he believed in, paid with his life. In the coalmining town of Dundee, situated in a valley of the Biggarsberg mountains, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, it is one of the many sad, yet largely unsung, stories of whistleblowing in Africa.
Blowing the whistle is a tough game in 21st-century Africa, but, it’s as important as ever in a world of more and more dirty secrets. In many parts of the world, whistleblowers have become household names,  such as Chelsea Manning, after disclosing sensitive military and diplomatic documents, and Edward Snowden after he leaked classified information from the National Security Agency. In Africa, online warrior Baba Jukwa, who leaked sensitive information about Zimbabwe’s ruling party Zanu-PF; and Kenya’s John Githongo, who embarrassed the powerful with his book It’s Our Turn To Eat, are far from lauded.
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Sadly, many whistleblowers in Africa are ruined or die unsung. They are shunned, harassed, jailed and left jobless.
In the small town of Umzinyathi District in KZN, South Africa, whistleblowing ended with a bullet. Grishen Bujram, from Dundee, was respected and hardworking. He had been an activist since he was 15 and a councillor. One day, he found that free houses for the poor were being sold for profit. South Africa has built millions of the so-called Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses, putting a roof over millions of heads.
Bujram was outraged and alleged the mayor of the African National Congress (ANC)-controlled Endumeni municipality, Thandeka Nukani, had sold 17 RDP houses and also taken one for herself; even though she had a well-paid job.
Bujram confronted the mayor and reported it to the council. On June 15, 2007, he was allegedly called for a meeting. His widow, Shirley Bujram, kissed him goodbye at the door at 6:30PM, unaware it was the last time she would see him alive.
“I was home with my children and I heard someone pounding at the door. When I went to the kitchen it was dark but I could see the police blue lights. I assumed my husband went and smashed someone or something else had happened. When I opened the door I saw the police and his nephew there. I said to the nephew, ‘if your uncle is in trouble I will leave him in jail till the end of the weekend,’” says Shirley.
The men in blue asked Shirley to sit down as they delivered the news. They said Bujram had been shot many times at the wheel in a township near Dundee.
“He was like a father to all of us in the community,” says resident Muzikayifani Khumalo – eight years later.
Another resident Thando Dube* says, “The thing that ended his life was his hatred for corruption. People like Bujram are the people who die for telling the truth. In this district, we are scared to talk because we are face to face with the gun. This place is corrupt but if you speak up you die.”
In the days after the death, Nukani, according to Shirley, visited the family to pass her condolences.
“Her exact words were ‘your husband’s killers must rot in jail’ which is shocking because she had previously sent me messages saying my husband is interfering with her work and has a jealous syndrome. If he continues on his path against her, he will be sorry,” she says.
According to the widow, a woman who was with Bujram, minutes before the assassination, testified in court that Bujram knew he was being followed by the mayor’s car, but thought nothing of it. Two brothers, on their way home from work; witnessed the mayor’s boyfriend, Bongani Shangase, shoot Bujram and her nephew, Siyabonga Nukani, used the car as a getaway vehicle.
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This breakthrough gave way to disappointment for the Bujram family. They say Dundee police had the case for three months but no arrest was made until the widow went to the organized crime unit.
Police arrested Nukani, but charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. Detectives arrested Shangase and Siyabonga Nukani. Shangase received a life sentence; Siyabonga turned state witness and got 20 years.
“Thandeka planned to have her nephew poisoned because he had turned state witness. Her boyfriend worked with other inmates to make this happen but the inmates couldn’t go through with it,” says Shirley.
There were charges for the attempted murder of Siyabonga Nukani, against Thandeka Nukani. They were withdrawn, in 2011, due to insufficient evidence.
Shirley Bujram and the police, with Siyabonga Nukani’s cooperation, also found there was a hitman, Mzamo Majola.
“I found out that when [Bujram] was killed it was the third attempt which became successful. The hitman had tried two times before. On the day Bujram was killed, Mzamo Majola couldn’t go ahead with it because there were people around. Shangase got agitated and killed my husband himself,” she says.
The police offered Majola a deal to turn state witness. Based on his evidence, police arrested Thandeka Nukani again.
In August last year, Judge Isaac Nkosi withdrew the Bujram murder charges against Thandeka Nukani after Majola went on the run.
For the second time, the former mayor walked free.
Thandeka Nukani has been redeployed as the personal assistant to Umzinyathi District mayor, James Mthethwa. She lost her mayoral seat after it was found R100,000 ($7,410) in legal fees, for the Bujram case, were allegedly paid for by the ANC.
Thandeka Nukani did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Nearly eight years on, Bujram’s comrades carry whistleblowing forward at equal risk. Mzwakhe Sithebe and Yussuf Kader are fellow activists who fight corruption in KZN and are often ridiculed for doing so.
“During the apartheid era we were fighting for justice together with Grishen Bujram. Now, in a democratic country, we are still faced with the same tendencies. The problem is people driven by greed,” says Sithebe.
“The problem is that politicians have been elevated and are like a law [unto] themselves. We will always fight for justice. The issue of being eliminated unfortunately is the fate for all of us who stand against corruption. We will raise questions that need to be raised irrespective of who will be offended and decide to kill us. We have lost a number of whistleblowers in this area. We need some kind of system that protects people willing to come forward with sensitive information.”
Kader, a businessman who now drives a bulletproof car, says whistleblowers risk their lives for the good of the country.
“Houses of the poorest of the poor are being taken by those in power. Some RDP houses get sold and there is a lot of inside corruption which we continue to fight against,” says Kader.
Because of the corruption, Kader has written a letter demanding the dismissal of five government employees.
“As it stands, I can be killed at any time but I am not afraid to die for the poorest of the poor.”
Endumeni Municipality’s Mayor Thulani Mahaye, the successor to Mayor Nukani, encourages people to come forward with any information that exposes irregularities.
“I am proud of the police and the community right now. They are working together to make this area safer and ensure arrests are made when a crime is committed. If someone needs to blow the whistle and they are afraid of being eliminated, they can secretly come forward and protection will be given to them,” he says.
Despite this, controversy over houses, that saw the death of Bujram, rumbles on.
A five-minute drive outside Dundee lies the small town of Glencoe. Its residents are up in arms against the municipality. They allege 71 names, for RDP houses, in Glencoe’s Sithembile Phase 2 projects, have been removed from the list.
“It is unclear how so many people lost houses they had applied, and had been approved, for. It can only be corruption. People’s names are disappearing from the list or being withdrawn without reason. For some people, untrue claims of application withdrawals are even made,” says Glencoe resident Sifiso Madi.
“An RDP house that I applied for was approved but when the houses were built they said I withdrew my application which I never did. They also said that they looked for me to come and sign documents but didn’t find me. This is not true because no one ever contacted me or my next of kin, sent a letter or came to where I stay to look for me,” says one Dundee woman who wants to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
Another frustrated resident says “my cousin died in 2008 but an RDP house had been approved for him. He left dependants, so in 2013 when the houses were being built I decided to check on the progress to make sure his children have a place to stay. Funnily enough, they gave me a list that says my cousin withdrew the application. How is that possible when he is dead? Did he wake up from his grave to withdraw it? I asked the human settlement people to show me where my cousin signed to withdraw his application for the house he had already been approved for, but obviously, because it never happened, they were not able to provide any proof.”
Many who rocked the boat like Bujram also paid with their lives.
In June, just 55 kilometers from Dundee, Vusi Ntombela, an Nquthu Municipality council speaker for the ANC, and teacher and deputy principal at Luvisi Primary School, was gunned down while teaching a Grade 6 class. A gunman walked into his classroom and shot him four times. Two pupils were caught in the crossfire. Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Nhleko died from a stray bullet.
The widow, Thembelihle Ntombela, told journalists she believes Vusi was killed because of tensions within the ANC. In December last year, Vusi had resisted an instruction from the ANC sub-region to resign as speaker. His murder is allegedly related to political tensions in the governing party’s Inkosi Bhambatha region and in the council itself.
Police arrested Mbhekiseni Khambule and Sibongiseni Mdakane for the murder. Khambule is the bodyguard of Nquthu mayor, Emily Molefe. Mdakane was later sentenced to life imprisonment. He confessed that he had been promised R15,000 (around $1,100) for the hit by his co-accused.
In May 2008, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) councillor Peter Nxele was shot dead in his driveway for speaking out against corruption just a week after raising questions about R50,000 ($3,700) that had gone missing from a council business grant. He also requested a forensic audit into the spending of the Endumeni municipality. One of the five men accused of gunning down Nxele is Bongani Shangase, the same man who killed Bujram.
In June 2009, 124 kilometers from Dundee where Bujram was killed, Tony Malunga, an ANC councillor and regional executive committee member, was gunned down at his home in Greytown. He was allegedly killed because of his fight against corruption. Malunga was found lying in a pool of blood outside the ANC offices.
Back in Dundee, Shirley Bujram vows to fight for justice for her husband’s murder.
“My husband was diabetic but a month before he died he said to me he was not going to be killed by diabetes because there is a bullet there for him; and by the bullet he died.”

“If You Speak Up You Die”

Last year, in the shadows of the Zimbabwean elections were whispers of a man who took risks by challenging people to question Robert Mugabe’s 26 years of power. At the click of his mouse he passed out classified information that spread like wild fire. They call him Baba Jukwa.
Jukwa, who calls himself a disgruntled Zanu-PF insider, agreed to an interview with FORBES LIFE AFRICA via Facebook to protect his identity. He has one clear mission: To see Zimbabwe rise to its former glory.
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“Zimbabwe is falling, but its people are not, and these same people shall lift it up as they express themselves through the spirit of freedom… But I will tell you without mincing words, even Mugabe himself is possessed by this same spirit of freedom, only that he suppresses it daily,” he says.
Jukwa’s posts included a prediction of a former Zanu-PF member of parliament, Edward Chindori-Chininga’s death, who died in a car accident after revealing corruption in the diamond sector. Jukwa also posted the HIV statuses of Zanu-PF politicians.
In November, reports accused Jukwa of being Zimbabwe’s information minister Jonathan Moyo. Others believe Jukwa is more than one person because the blogs betray a number of writing styles. Whoever it is, they are certainly an insider.
“I have over the past 33 years worked in a place where everything is naked and bare, so it is not uncommon at all for me to know everything and anything.”
Jukwa says he has no fear because he is a dead man already. All he wants is for the country to be free.
“On that day, when the people have finally freed themselves from the chains of oppression and once again Zimbabwe is a shining nation as the ancestors would have had it, it shall be a great day of celebration, mark my words.”
Across the Atlantic lives a social media guru who could be considered Jukwa’s brother in arms. At least he is unafraid to use his own name. Dressed in torn jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, he looks like an average Joe. His red beard and large earrings may be the reason you give him a second look, but there is more to him than meets the eye.
In 2011, Harper Reed took the job of technology chief for Barak Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. His job was to gather voters with the use of social media. The strategy was a gem and Obama made history again, this time for becoming the first president to be re-elected with the help of his social media campaign.
Although Reed was working for one of the most powerful people in the world, it was not enough to get him into a suit and tie.
“This one time [Obama] walked out of the office on the campaign and walked up to my buddy Dillan and I and the first thing he said to us was, ‘Ah, you guys must be the tech team.’ I think it was our beards that gave us away.”
Flushed with the success of Obama’s re-election campaign, could Reed consult in the tricky politics of Africa?
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“Probably not. For me, if I really supported the person, then yes. The thing is, you must do this because you want to do it and not because you want money. Because it’s politics, you have to treat it that way,” he says.
Reed says it is important to fight media censorship. He speaks of the importance of a transparent government to avoid having the same people in power over and over again.
“In my time in South Africa, I talked to a lot of people about politics and there was this fear of continuation of a single government for a long time without change… If people feel like it really matters to them, they need to step up and solve the problem.”
Unlike Jukwa, Reed lives in comparative freedom.
“People talk a lot of shit on the internet, as you can imagine. It’s just how it works on the internet. People are mean and they can do crazy things. But for the most part, there’s a lot of work done in the United States to make it so that people don’t feel intimidated. I’ve never felt like I had to hide.”
With elections around the corner for some African countries, perhaps it is time to adopt a word that was significant on Obama’s road to victory. A word both feared and revered: Change.   FL

Photo-Oct-27-2-26-38-PM

Guerilla Bloggers

“You must keep going, don’t let go,” replies the teacher.
A moment across a table as an African trailblazer in business uses his lessons in life to help shape a young entrepreneur.
The teacher is 86-year-old Richard Maponya; his pupil is 32-year-old Monalisa Sam. They grew up worlds apart with the same aim.
Maponya, a trained teacher who never taught, joined a company in the 1950s to sell clothing to miners. This job spurred him on to become an entrepreneur.
For more than 50 years, Maponya did everything. He sold clothes door-to-door, meat to butchers, BMWs to the rich and property to the wise. Most came in oppressive apartheid days when Maponya was shunned at every turn.
Maponya Mall is his holy grail. It took Maponya $62.8 million, 28 years and a string of lawsuits to carve out the first shopping mall in the bustling Soweto.
“It was like a war, I don’t know how many times I had been turned down by the apartheid government,” Maponya says.
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Former president Nelson Mandela opened the mall in late 2007. In 1957, Mandela, then a young lawyer, assisted Maponya when the businessman was trying to obtain a license to open a retail clothing store.
By contrast, Sam is the daughter of a former headmaster, who had it easier. Her father, Gideon Sam, is now the South African Sports Confederations and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) president. Sam was part of the first generation of black children to enrol in formerly whites only schools. She has a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting degree from the University of Cape Town and was employed by Old Mutual Properties.
Their paths crossed when Sam was a general manager for Maponya Mall Property Trust in 2007. A friendship was forged in the two years she worked there, before she left to co-found Tungwa Retail Holdings in 2011, a company run by black women.
“When we interviewed Monalisa for the job, there were many others but she was the star. We grabbed her with both hands. And we were not disappointed by our decision. She’s very talented and confident. I know she will go very far,” says Maponya.
To this day, Maponya, albeit frail, hasn’t lost his hunger for business, nor his dress sense that made him a snappy salesman a lifetime ago.
The mentor and protégé meet at Maponya’s house in Hyde Park to catch up and assess how the young entrepreneur is faring.
“The business is coming on well, Papa, but as any entrepreneurial project it takes time with a lot of challenges. But we are grounded on what we want to do. We will keep going,” Sam tells Maponya.
Maponya surprises his protégé with talk of a new business.
“I have been very busy with a little challenge. I have ventured into the chicken industry. It has been monopolized by Afrikaaners and I just felt I had to have a crack at it and see if I can make a difference and see if I can encourage some of the black folks to join in. It is not an easy industry,” he says.
“If you want to succeed in this industry you must own everything. Don’t depend on other people,” Maponya advises his student.
The talk veers towards the government’s black economic empowerment (BEE) policy aimed at wealth redistribution. They both feel it has failed.
Maponya criticizes the BEE policy and tender system which the government uses to give contracts to the public.
“They came up with something they themselves cannot control. The white men saw opportunity in the BEE. It has created so many white millionaires as it made it possible for them to just pick a black person and say this is my BEE partner,” says Maponya.
“As the black partner you never get access to finances, you don’t know what’s going on with money, you are not empowered, you are just a token,” Sam interjects.
They agree BEE has failed to spread wealth. It is benefiting the few with political connections.
“The other thing it does Papa, it encourages a sense of entitlement among black people. There’s this idea you don’t have to work, you don’t have to understand anything. If you are just there as a black person, you are going to get something,” adds Sam.
Sam says the deals are out of most people’s reach.
“It has done a lot of harm, it has killed the youth initiatives,” says Maponya.
“Tendering is the worst thing that has ever been created. It has become a monster that has corrupted people from right at the top of government to the bottom of the ladder,” says Maponya.
“The idea is that you will never get a tender if you have not done something unscrupulous. Some say by the time it comes out in the papers it is too late. Newspaper advertisement is just a formality to say we are transparent,” says Sam.
Maponya says the government must scrap the tendering policy.
“It hurts me seeing the country becoming the most corrupt nation in the continent,” says Maponya.
The National Empowerment Fund (NEF), the government funding agent, argues that it is doing its job with distinction and merit.
“The relevance of the National Empowerment Fund is far beyond question. There’s no other (funding) entity that does what we do, no bank that does it. NEF is run with absolute integrity,” says Moemise Motsepe, the marketing and communications manager of NEF.
On average the NEF receives more than 300 applications a month. Those that are not successful are considered for a business mentorship program that runs over six months, says Motsepe.
“To date the National Empowerment Fund has funded over 500 black businesses which have created over 44,000 jobs. Over 20% of the beneficiaries are women,” he adds.
Despite these problems, Sam is far from discouraged.
“If you listened to Papa’s story when he started, the times were different but the business principles are the same of saying take the opportunity, understand where the gap is and how you service that gap,” she says.
“For many years, Papa nurtured his dream of building and owning a world-class shopping center in Soweto. In my time at Maponya, I learnt so much from him. But the most important thing he has taught me is humility and patience.”
It is evident in the conversation that the duo’s problems are different but the suffering is the same.
Like his clan totem elephant, which is the emblem on his business and tie, Maponya remains a heavyweight in business who is far from ready to give up his title.

It Hurts Seeing My Country Becoming The Most Corrupt Nation

Divine Key Anderson, a young Liberian filmmaker, stands under a faded grey palaver hut at the University of Liberia in Monrovia. With wide eyes and animated expression, he speaks passionately about the revolutionary potential of film and the film school he set up with a small grant. The audience, made up of a group of students and civil society advocates, listen attentively before posing questions to the filmmaker about his project. Anderson is followed by a young man who has a proposal for holding Monrovia’s magisterial courts accountable, through allowing the citizens who use them to assess them through a scorecard system—a radical idea in a country where there is little justice.
Welcome to the Accountability Collective, a monthly meeting of Liberians working to develop innovative ideas to hold those in power accountable and create change in a nation where corruption remains public enemy number one.
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The Accountability Collectives are organized by the Accountability Lab, the brainchild of Blair Glencorse, a 34-year-old international relations graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with a decade of experience in international development. The organization incubates small-scale, low-cost entrepreneurial ideas that encourage accountability, an idea Glencorse terms accountrapreneurship.
While the Lab is still in its infancy and operating in two developing nations, Liberia and Nepal, Glencorse hopes that it will evolve into a movement that challenges the aid industry, an industry that he argues more often breeds corruption and dependence, rather than democracy and development.
In fact, the project emerged out of Glencorse’s experiences working in an aid industry that he argues is more preoccupied with big budgets rather than tangible results. He saw money being wasted, the same schools being built twice because of corruption and mismanagement.
“Despite rhetoric about ownership and alignment, I think many of these larger organizations still are sadly caught up in measuring results through numbers rather than through impact; and managers are promoted on how much they spend rather than how well that money is spent,” Glencorse tells FORBES AFRICA.
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“The overall effect is that you have often very large projects, which these organizations cannot afford to admit don’t work; and they are also accountable and answerable to taxpayers in the West more than they are to the citizens in the countries where they are actually working.”
With the offer of a small amount of funding from private donors and a crowd-funding campaign online, Glencorse set off on a new path. Unlike his developmental counterparts who ride around in white four-wheel drives, Glencorse zips through the streets of Monrovia dressed in collared shirts and slacks on the back of motorcycle taxis on a different mission.
International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and dollars are ubiquitous in Liberia, the small West African nation that was wracked by a 14-year civil war that left its infrastructure and institutions in tatters and its communities divided and population traumatized. The crossroads of Monrovia’s main thoroughfare, Tubman Boulevard, are punctuated with the dusty signs and slogans of these organizations. It is a route that ascends into a crescendo of blue and white buildings that belong to various UN agencies. Despite this assistance from international donors, Liberia is perceived by its citizens as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International, and graft and predatory behavior was found to be widespread among the police force according to a recent Human Rights Watch report.
Yet despite its ongoing challenges with corruption, Liberia received $765 million in development assistance in 2011 according to figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a remarkable amount for a nation with a population just short of four million. The United Nations Mission in Liberia, one of the longest serving and largest missions in sub-Saharan Africa, has a current troop presence of around 7,500 and costs $500 million annually to sustain. One former senior diplomat referred to Monrovia as the workshop capital of the world, underscoring how overrun the city had become with NGOs.
For Glencorse, the heavy presence of NGOs in post-conflict countries like Liberia often undermines accountability both at a local and governmental level, something he found from working on fragile and conflict-affected states at the World Bank.
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“The amount of money that has flowed into this country [Liberia] since the end of the war 10 years ago has changed incentives so that aid has become a business rather than a process to help people improve their lives. What this means from a Liberian perspective is you can make a lot of money in the non-profit world by telling foreigners what they would like to hear rather than doing work that would actually improve the lives of Liberians,” Glencorse says.
“The government has become a lot more accountable to external actors rather than its own citizens.”
While Liberians remain deeply suspicious of the political establishment and those in power, Glencorse argues that due to Liberia’s long-standing patronage networks, corruption is rife at all levels of society. Thus, his approach starts from the bottom up instead.
“In somewhere like Liberia it needs to begin with this sense of personal responsibility. Accountability, which is synonymous with corruption for many people, is seen as something that happens among big decision makers in government and possibly the private sector and not actually something that individuals see as applicable to themselves. So there is a sense of othering that takes place,” he says.
So what is the solution?
Innovative and creative ideas that encourage accountability and engage the community at a local level, argues Glencorse.
“It’s about collective solutions to shared problems; it’s not about pointing fingers at individuals and saying you are corrupt,” Glencorse says.
The Lab provides small grants of up to $2,000 on the basis that the ideas they support are feasible, scalable and sustainable.
In its early stages, the Lab received proposals for workshops with complementary lunches, awareness raising campaigns that involved printing banners and t-shirts, a reflection of the lack of imagination amongst many NGOs operating in Liberia.
After a while Glencorse and his team took a more targeted approach, and focused on engaging civil society groups, musicians, artists, university students, journalists and young people who have proposed ideas for projects. Among the projects the Lab supports is Anderson’s Accountability Film School that helps ordinary Liberians to create small films that explore issues of corruption and accountability using narrative and role-play.
“Since 1847 we have been writing papers and not much has changed in this country and that is because 70 percent of our population are illiterate (…) But with film even a blind man can see,” says Anderson who believes that film can be instrumental to change in Liberia. Liberia’s adult literacy rate is 61%.
The Lab held its first accountability film festival this year and will hold several more in the coming year.
The Lab also supports an SMS information system called the Tell-it-True project at schools and universities in Monrovia, where students can make inquiries and lodge complaints about everything from sexual harassment by teachers to lack of attendance.
Among other projects are a community mediation project that looks at ways to solve problems between neighbors outside of the justice system; a project where the well-known citizen journalist Alfred Sirleaf informs the public about laws and access to services on a newspaper made out of a chalkboard sitting on the edge of Tubman Boulevard; as well as a radio program called Oil Talk, that is broadcast in counties whose shorelines border areas of ocean that multinational companies are currently exploring for oil.
But the long-term sustainability of these projects poses a major challenge for Glencorse and the Lab.
“Accountability is more difficult than business in that regard,” he says.
“There is no user-fee model that we might be able to use for some of the ideas. Sustainability is a bit more difficult but it is something we are thinking hard about.”
The Lab is planning to raise funds through accountability bus tours and postcards that showcase its work in Liberia and Nepal to tourists and delegations that pass through.
On the future of the organization, Glencorse says he would like to see the Lab and its ideas exported to neighboring countries like Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. But he wants the organization to remain a grassroots one. Glencorse and his team are currently devising a toolkit so that small groups in different countries can create their own Labs.
“We would like to scale the vision. We don’t want to become a big bureaucratic organization because that would begin to take away from what makes what we are trying to do unique,” says Glencorse.

First Shots In A War  On Corruption

“It’s time to let him go”, ran the front page headline of South Africa’s largest selling Sunday newspaper last month. This, a day after Nelson Mandela—struggle icon and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president—was re-admitted to hospital following a recurring lung infection. The Sunday Times was quoting Mandela’s long-time friend and comrade, Andrew Mokete Mlangeni, who had said: “The family must release him so that God may have his own way. They must release him spiritually and put their faith in the hands of God. Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow.”
This from a man of few words. He is the least recognized of Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia Trial comrades. But, when 87-year-old Mlangeni does speak, he seldom minces his words; just like he didn’t mince his words more than a year ago, in our last interview. When asked to make assessment of the state of the African National Congress (ANC), specifically why South Africa’s governing party was so riddled with infighting, and was increasingly earning a reputation as being corrupt, Mlangeni retorted: “My heart bleeds when I see what is happening today. People are fighting to improve their own selves. The trouble is greed today. Everybody wants to be in the leadership. Everybody wants to be the president, the minister, earn more money, drive beautiful cars, have security around you. We are forgetting the people who have elected us into government.”
He continued: “Look at the corruption—everywhere corruption, corruption, corruption—is this what we were fighting for? Is this what people died for? We were accusing the Nationalist party government of corruption, and this is what we are doing today? My heart bleeds.”
Mlangeni’s candidness is nothing new. In court, 50 years ago, anticipating an adverse ruling by the presiding judge, Mlangeni would not cooperate with the court but instead read a terse statement: “The court can now see that some of the evidence given against me is true and some false. I have chosen not to give evidence, my Lord, because first of all, I do not want to be cross-examined about people I have worked with and places I have visited, in case I might give these people away. Also, my Lord, I have frankly admitted that I have assisted Umkhonto we Sizwe. I want to say that I joined the ANC in 1954. I did it because I want to work for my people. I did this because of the treatment my people have received from the rulers of this country. In the ANC, I found a political home, where I was free to talk against the government.”
“South Africa, my Lord, is a very rich country. The resources could be exploited for the benefit of all the people who live in it. This government and the previous governments have exploited not the earth but the people of various racial groups, whose color is not white. But the government, daily, makes suppressive laws in its white Parliament, [whose] laws are aimed at suppressing the political aspirations of the majority of the people, who have no say. I know that you, my Lord, have to administer the law, but when you do so, I ask you to remember what we, the Africans and non-white people, have had to suffer. That is all I have to say except, to add, that what I did was not for myself but for my people&#8230;”
No sooner had he said those words, Mlangeni was sentenced to life imprisonment alongside seven of his comrades—Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba, Govan Mbeki, Denis Goldberg and Elias Motsoaledi. Two of their fellow trialists, Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein and James Kantor, were acquitted. The state withdrew charges against the eleventh accused, Bob Hepple, after he agreed to testify for the prosecution.
Mlangeni would serve 26 years, many of them in an isolated cell, on Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor Prison. In his mind, he replayed his upbringing as well as the events and circumstances that led to his incarceration—from his birth on May 6, 1926 in Prospect township, in Soweto, Johannesburg as the ninth of 14 children; to starting school at 10; having to drop out two years later to find work, after his father died; working as a golf caddy; and later becoming a factory worker and bus driver.
In 1951, young Mlangeni joined the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and, three years later, the ANC.
Following the ANC’s decision to move beyond passive resistance and embrace an armed struggle against the country’s colonial rulers, Mlangeni enlisted for Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)—the ANC’s armed wing. Between 1961 and 1963 he was among the first six guerillas to undergo military training in China.
Upon the completion of their initial training—by this time he was a member of the High Command, MK’s highest decision-making body—they returned from the land of Mao Tse-tung to begin their ambitious program of insurrection. The MK’s High Command and operatives would meet secretly, every Monday, at Liliesleaf Farm. It was at this small holding, north of Johannesburg, that they plotted their operations.
Little did Mlangeni know—on a chilly Monday evening on June 24, 1963, while returning from their meeting, with assignment in hand—that state security agents were looking for him. This encounter would change his life forever.
The following morning Mlangeni was due to go to Krugersdorp, less than an hour from Johannesburg, to collect weapons to take them to a safe house.
“I arrived home at about half past eleven in the evening. My wife was asleep,” he says.
A short while later, police stormed his house, in Duke, Soweto and he was arrested. In the police car, waiting for him outside, was one of his comrades, Motsoaledi. Upon their arrival at the Pretoria Central Prison they found more of their comrades, who had already been detained.
“I was hurt, the police said the ANC is finished,” says Mlangeni.
On November 26, 1963, South Africa’s most famous political trial would begin, ending on June 12, the following year. International pressure, Mlangeni reckons, is what saved them from the death penalty.
“Strangely, we didn’t think we would die in prison. I had read a bit about the struggles of other people… [I] had seen how the Chinese struggled for their freedom; how the China Communist Party fought against emperors, against foreign occupiers of China, and how they ultimately drove all of them out,” he says.
Indeed, the Rivonia trialists would not die in prison. Mlangeni used this time to study for his Bachelor of Arts and honors degrees.
One day in 1986, while at Pollsmoor Prison, the anti-apartheid prisoners got an offer from their captors, through Mandela, affectionately known as Madiba—his clan name.
Mlangeni recalls: “Madiba was taken to hospital, where he was approached by Kobie Coetzee, who was minister of prisons at the time. Coetzee said they wanted to release the rest of us first, but keep Mandela. But would keep Mandela in a place where it would be easy for his family to come in at any time. Winnie and the kids would come see him anytime. Madiba thought it was a good idea. The comrades could go join the [anti-apartheid] forces outside.”
Upon Mandela’s return from hospital, “the four of us [Mlangeni, Sisulu, Mhlaba and Kathrada] were taken to an office where Madiba told us of this offer from government. We didn’t accept. We said: ‘What will people say? They will think we are sell outs.’”
Mlangeni says Mandela didn’t mind staying behind and thought his comrades should agree to be released, so they could strengthen the forces of freedom. What made the decision difficult was the regime’s stated logic, that if they released Mandela the country would go up in flames. The state also insisted that the activists denounce violence.
“So we rejected the offer.”
A couple of months went by.
“One day on October 1989, on the 10th, a warder came and said: ‘Guys, I want you to put on your best clothes.’ We said: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘I don’t know, you are probably going to see a minister.’”
The four were taken to Victor Verster Prison, where Mandela was now staying.
“Madiba said things had changed. He said the government was no longer singing the song of renouncing violence. They are saying they can release you and months later me. We accepted the offer. We said: ‘Okay, go and tell them that we’re prepared to take up their offer.’”
When their meeting was over, Mandela’s comrades were told they could not go back to Pollsmoor, as there was a large media contingent camping outside Victor Verster Prison.
“They were telling a lie,” chuckles Mlangeni as he recalls the sequence of events. “At eight o’clock, it was news time on TV and they had organized a TV for us. First item, the government has decided to release so and so from prison… our names… and that Madiba would be released soon. After the news they said: ‘Well chaps, the media is gone now. We can take you back to your cells.’”
“We were no longer addressed by our first names, but as Mr Mlangeni, Mr Mandela… We said we were hungry. They asked us what we wanted to eat. We said steak and chips. We hadn’t had that in a while.”
On October 15, 1989 Mlangeni, Sisulu, Mhlaba and Kathrada walked out of jail. And on February 11, 1990, Mandela followed.
Four years later, Mandela would become post-apartheid South Africa’s first democratically-elected president. Mlangeni, together with Sisulu and Mbeki, would be members of Parliament. Mhlaba would be the premier of the Eastern Cape.
Nineteen years on, Mlangeni has retired from politics, yet he remains a veteran member of the ANC. He divides his time between playing golf, very competently—he learnt as a caddy—his foundation and advising the ANC. He was a member of the electoral commission, during the last elective conference. Now, he chairs the party’s recently established Integrity Committee; it investigates allegations of corruption against party members.
The ANC has a lot of battles, Mlangeni concedes, but is adamant about its resilience.
“I know the ANC can always regroup, when things go wrong. We can always come back together.”
As for the government the ANC leads, Mlangeni says they are doing their best.
“We can’t meet the demands of our people in the few years. [Nineteen years] is too little to meet the demands of our people. It took [colonialists] more than 300 years to do what they’ve done to suppress us, to exploit us.”
Does he have any regrets?
“None whatsoever.”
What he missed a great deal though was seeing his children grow up. His wife Johanna, who died in 2001, singlehandedly brought up their four children. Mlangeni’s children were teenagers when he was arrested in 1963; the youngest was 14.
“Other things were also important… but not seeing my kids…”
Twenty six years of imprisonment didn’t change Mlangeni’s unyielding support of the fight for freedom, but when he speaks of his children, his voice trembles.

Corruption.  Is This What We Fought For?

How times have changed. When I covered my first African Development Bank annual meeting nearly 20 years ago, development conversation was often dominated by apartheid—how the last bastion of white rule was impeding the progress of the continent.
Dominant, too, were the other issues frustrating African progress: political instability in the west and east; soldiers in power; corruption; poor governance; poverty etc. Back then aid flows were certainly bigger than foreign direct investment; fewer countries boasted positive real growth rates, let alone expansion at near double digits; elections were at a premium and even rarer—peaceful change in government. It was so dark that five years later The Economist magazine weighed in with its now infamous ‘Hopeless Africa’ moniker.
Now, not only do opposition parties assume power from a ruling party like they did in Zambia last year but you can count on your two hands, the number of countries where democratic elections have become the norm. According to The Economist, all but Mauritius peacefully changed a government or president at the ballot box in the three decades since independence in the 1960s. However, once Benin set the trend in 1991, it has happened more than 30 times.
“We are here to tell the world: African investment opportunities are the ‘low hanging fruit’, part of the solution to today’s global problems,” said Donald Kaberuka, the head of the African Development Bank, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 meetings.
Global consultancy McKinsey &amp; Company in its much lauded Lions on the Move research says 27 of the continent’s 30 biggest economies have been expanding at a faster pace since 2000. These days, The Economist says that between 2010 and 2011, seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies were African.
The reforms of the 1990s—the same ones The Economist didn’t see—are beginning to pay off. To be fair they did change tune—in December 2011, that headline had changed to ‘The Hopeful Continent’. The reforms bore fruit at a most opportune time with the rise of the dragons in the east—China and India—happening at the same time that Europe began to decline. All this, illuminated Africa’s investment credentials.
“I have no doubt in my mind that Africa is poised to become the world’s new economic powerhouse for the 21st century,” says Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete. “With its endowment in both natural and human resources, the pursuit of sound economic policies, and with democracy, good governance, respect for the rule of law and human rights being entrenched, nothing will stop Africa from getting there.’’
The 2012 meetings demonstrated just how far Africa has come. It was hosted by Tanzania’s tourism capital, Arusha, at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. The theme was taking advantage of the here and now; ‘Africa and the Emerging Global Landscape:
Challenges and Opportunities’. Over five days, seminars, bilateral discussions and workshops discussed everything from the lessons learnt from civil wars, droughts and food security to good financial governance. Here was the evidence, if any more was needed, that Africa’s time has come. The bank’s financials themselves tell the story. While the bank was near collapse in 1995, the AfDB’s financial health is now strong. It remains Africa’s sole AAA-rated institution by all three global rating agencies—meaning it can borrow at lower costs than France, Spain and Portugal.
Last year it approved $5.66 billion in loans, grants and equity investments etc., up 42% from the prior year. But the bank’s value cannot be measured in the money it lends alone. It is an important player in building African institutional capacity and technical capacity which plays a role in fragile states and is also helping the continent to achieve food security. In short, the mandate has moved beyond the original focus on infrastructure envisaged by its founding fathers in 1963.
But caution remains a watchword for Kaberuka, who is now serving his second and last term.
“There are heavy dark clouds on the horizon—the lagged effects of the recession in Europe, the uncertainty about how the BRICs will fare in 2012, and hence the implication for investment flows and demand for our exports. Also, in 2008 when the financial crisis was at its apex, Africa was in a much stronger position to withstand the external shocks. This time round, the resilience is not as robust, the shock absorbers, the fiscal space is weaker,” says Kaberuka.
However, with projections of a near doubling of the continent’s combined GDP to $2.6 trillion by 2020, with consumer spending forecast to increase by 62% to $1.4 trillion over the same period, in key sectors like consumer products, construction, telecoms, financial services and mining; it’s hard to temper optimism that the diamond in the rough may be ready to shine.
“While Africa’s challenges are well-documented, there is an increasing recognition that the continent is on an upward trajectory; economically, politically and socially,” says Ernst &amp; Young in its 2011 Africa attractiveness survey.
From hopeless to hopeful, I wonder what The Economist’s headline will be a decade from now?

Tag: corruption

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