South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma desperately tried, but failed, to block the release of the public protector’s report that implicated him, several politicians, and state-owned enterprises, in the so-called state capture saga.
In the same week that controversial fraud charges against the Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan were dropped, the president and two of his ministers were dealt with a sickening blow by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria. On November 1, Judge Dunstan Mlambo struck off the roll the application of the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, David van Rooyen. Minister of mineral resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, and Zuma also failed to have the report interdicted. Zuma’s lawyers withdrew their application and the judge ordered the office of the Public Protector to release the report in a few hours.
The report implicated Zuma, several ministers, and some businessmen, in colluding in state capture with the Gupta family. Brothers Ajay, Atul, and Rajesh Gupta, from India, have numerous business interests in South Africa.
Former Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, had planned to release the report on October 14, her last day in office, but Zuma’s lawyers applied for an interdict to prevent the report being released.
In a television interview soon after the state capture report was released, former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, said he believes Zuma will respect the law.
“I would like to imagine the president, like everybody in the country, would take the report seriously, study it as the presidency has suggested. Study it closely with the view to taking whatever action might be necessary. I don’t know what it would be, but it must be based on assessment of what the Public Protector has said and the implication of those statements if they are indeed correct,” said Mbeki.
In 2005, Mbeki suspended Zuma, who was the Deputy President at the time. Zuma was accused of having a corrupt relationship with his former financial advisor, Schabir Shaik. Although the charges against Zuma were dropped, Judge Hilary Squires found the two had a “generally corrupt relationship” and Shaik went to prison.
Zuma dodged serious charges then. Will he be able to repeat the trick after the state capture report? The Public Protector stated that Zuma must appoint a judicial inquiry within 30 days to investigate the allegations. Zuma, however, says he plans to go back to court to challenge the report. He says it is inconclusive and needs to be reviewed by him.
Prince Mashele, a political analyst and senior researcher at the Centre for Politics and Research at the University of Pretoria, says the African National Congress (ANC) missed a golden opportunity to fire Zuma when the Constitutional Court ruled he had misused state funds to upgrade his Nkandla homestead.
“The report is a clear indication that South Africa is run by a corrupt government and people who join politics to enrich themselves at the expense of citizens. This is a simple message to the rest of the world that we are no different from the rest of the continent. This doesn’t put us in a positive light. During the tenure of Presidents Mandela and Mbeki we gave the impression that we were different, but Zuma has confirmed the stereotypes that we cannot run our countries,” he says.
Mashele says he cannot imagine the ANC repairing its dented imagine before the national elections in 2019.
“The ANC is doomed. They can only go down. Come 2019, if they are winning the elections, they can only do that with a small margin. They have been constantly losing the people’s support. I won’t be surprised if the people dump them for the opposition,” says Mashele, is the author of The Death of Our Society and co-author of The Fall of the ANC: What Next?.
Scathingly, Mashele says we must all thank Zuma for revealing our true African character, that the idea of the rule of law is not part who we are, and that the constitution is a concept far ahead of us as a people.
“How else are we to explain the thousands of people who flock to stadiums to clap hands for a president who has violated their country’s constitution?”
“Now that we have reclaimed our place as another African country, we must reflect on, and come to terms with, our real character and imagine what our future portends,” says the despondent Mashele.
Unless a credible and independent investigation into the state capture allegations takes place, that future could be bleak.

Backed Into A Corner But Still Throwing Punches

In the space of few days, just before South Africa’s Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, was to appear in court on charges of fraud, the reputations of President Jacob Zuma and the country’s National Director of Public Prosecutions, Shaun Abrahams, were dealt damaging blows.
In an impromptu press conference on October 31, a day of Halloween that might haunt Abrahams for years to come, the National Director of Public Prosecutions announced that he was withdrawing the charges against Gordhan, along with those against two former employees of South African Revenue Services (SARS), Ivan Pillay and Oupa Magashula. From the word go, many suspected the charges were trumped up and politically motivated.
In a long-winded speech at the NPA’s headquarters in Pretoria, Abrahams was nervous as he fielded scathing questions from the media. It was a far cry from the man who seemed self-assured as he announced the charges less than a month before. While Abrahams was confident then, his actions sent shivers down the spines of investors. The markets plunged and the rand fell more than 3% in few minutes. It was just two weeks before Gordhan delivered his mid-term budget speech.
It raised questions about the leadership of Abrahams, who is in charge of National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), and Zuma, who appointed him.
“When you are in a situation like we are in at the moment, you need leadership in government. At the same time, get the timing right. Leadership, in this particular instance, is needed to inspire confidence. Confidence in your country, confidence in a future and confidence in yourself, that you can influence the present to change the future. That is what is missing at the moment. Some of us are trying, some of us are close. I think we can do it,” said Gordhan during an interview with CNBC Africa a week before the trial was to begin.
On November 2, the day Gordhan, Magashula and Pillay were meant to appear in court, the High Court in Pretoria ordered the Public Protector to release the report on state capture, despite attempts to interdict its release by Zuma, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister David van Rooyen, and Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane. All three are implicated in the report which raises questions over the influence of the Gupta family on the president, ministers and state-owned enterprises.
Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) marched in Pretoria demanding Zuma and Abrahams resign.
In Pretoria, shops closed their doors for fear of looting. The only people making money were those selling food and EFF merchandise in the streets.
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An EFF branded truck entertained the supporters with music as a group danced and sang revolutionary songs at Church Square. Later, while addressing thousands of his supporters, EFF President, Julius Malema, lashed out at Zuma‚ saying that he’s “the country’s number one thief who sold it to the controversial and well-connected Gupta family.”
“We are putting a very strong argument that Zuma must pay the cost personally. We want to teach Zuma’s Mickey Mouses a lesson because these ministers are doing as they wish and they take matters to the court knowing that they won’t be affected,” says Malema.
“All those who captured the state of our institution must go. The CEO of [national power supplier] Eskom must go because he doesn’t have a place in our institution and that includes everyone else in government-owned companies who are controlled by the Guptas, if you can’t resign from the Guptas now; you’re going to be history. The Guptas must leave South Africa.”
The marchers dispersed while chanting: “Zuma the thief must voetsek (go)” and “Defend the democratic state”. Chaos erupted as they blocked traffic around the central business district. Police attempted to control the crowd after they burned a water tank.
The crowd ran amok and damaged property and looted shops. They assaulted the security who was trying to protect shops. The police used stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the supporters after they reportedly tried to force their way onto the lawns of the Union Buildings.
In these few days, where chaos erupted in parliament, court and the street, South Africans were assured that the law will always trump political shenanigans. As Gordhan was able to hold his head high, Zuma and his cronies had to take cover and plot their way out of the mess they suddenly find themselves in.

‘Zuma The Thief Must Voetsek’

In the build up to the furore over Pravin Gordhan, the African National Congress (ANC) delivered a slap in the face to scores of its biggest names who endured prison and faced death to put the party into power. It spoke of a yawning gap between the principled roots of the party and its current remote and embattled leadership.
Sixty five ANC stalwarts wrote a letter to the General Secretary of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, addressed to President Jacob Zuma and the top five in the leadership, castigating the ruling party and calling for change in way it runs.<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5364" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/RZ8F0590-300x286.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="286" />
The letter, in the possession of FORBES AFRICA, was signed by scores of the biggest names in African liberation politics, including three survivors of the so-called Rivonia Trial in 1964 who faced death with Nelson Mandela in 1964. Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg and Andrew Mlangeni were all found guilty, with Mandela, of sabotage and spent a lifetime in prison.
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Other signatories to the letter:  former Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus; former Director General of the Presidency of South Africa Frank Chikane; former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel; former Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin; former Speaker of the National Assembly Frene Ginwala; and former ambassador to London Cheryl Carolus.
“We have observed the ill-begotten wealth among some of our leaders at all levels and the resulting ruinous effects on the organization’s moral and political fabric and on society as a whole,” says the letter.
“We have watched as the leadership of the ANC became mired in a cycle of in-fighting occasioned not by any ideological or political difference but personal interest. We believe that many of the factors outlined have contributed significantly to the political assassinations to which we are sadly becoming accustomed.”
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The letter calls upon the president and the leadership to acknowledge its shortcomings, including failing to act against corruption, nepotism and factionalism.
In reply, on October 3, came a standard letter that astonished many party stalwarts.
The letter, signed by Mantashe, asked why the concerns were not coming through the structures of the ANC. It included the following questions of people who had been loyal members of the movement for more than 50 years.
Which branch of the ANC are you currently a member of?
What has caused you to mobilize a group of 65 comrades outside of the structures of the ANC?
Please advise us of who, if anyone, has paid for the costs of the mobilization of your group?
Please provide a brief summary of your understanding of the objectives of the group?
Many of the ANC veterans on the list were flabbergasted at being brushed off in such a manner and vowed to take the matter further; yet another rift likely to cause conflict and ructions in Africa’s oldest liberation movement.

A Slap In The Face Comrade

It is a peaceful 200-yard walk from the Cape Town city streets to the gates of Parliament, but inside it was loaded like a gun; anger blazed in the eyes of many for Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa for nearly seven years and head of the African National Congress (ANC).
A small group outside Parliament held up placards reading ‘ANC Betraying South Africa’. The leader, in a navy suit, who wishes to be known only as Michael, said they had taken their lunchbreak to voice their disgust.
“The ANC members here today must do the honorable thing and fire this president who flaunts our wealth.”
A man dressed in the darkness of death contrasted against Parliament’s bright white walls. He held a cardboard match to a cardboard Constitution as MPs floated past in their luxury vehicles.
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Curious students across the way ran to see what the fuss is all about. One claimed Zuma is running the economy into the ground, another countered that he is too powerful to be ousted.
The street vendor, a few blocks down, didn’t care. He sold sweets and cigarettes to anyone who had money, be it Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) red or ANC green and gold, as they shuffled toward Parliament. No one wanted to miss this one.
Inside, the debate raged like a fire on Table Mountain. The gallery was packed as leaders of the opposition parties tore into the ruling ANC. Mmusi Maimane, the first black leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), likened the ills of his opponents to a disease.
“Corruption has infected the entire party like a cancer. While our attention today focuses on a large and malignant tumour, we know that under the surface, the disease has replicated itself in every cell,” said Maimane.
“Today, it will be recorded that ANC members of Parliament chose to defend a crooked, broken president instead of the constitution and the rule of law. Today will signal once and for all that the ANC has lost its way and there’s absolutely no way back.”
Nhlanhla Khubisa, National Freedom Party secretary-general, called for the president to be elected by the citizens, and not by the party.
Pieter Mulder, Freedom Front Plus leader, reminded the ANC of the fate of their predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who was recalled in 2008.
“His mistakes were 10 times less serious than Zuma&#8230; Sir, if ANC members once again ignore the facts of the last week… take my word for it, history will in a couple of years from now judge them very harshly and negatively,” said Mulder.
ANC MP and Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, John Jeffery, bit back.
“The DA claims the president seriously violated the Constitution, but here is the issue: the court did not find a serious violation of the Constitution as Section 89 (1) requires&#8230; The court did not declare Zuma violated his oath of office as the EFF had wanted.”
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A statement was read out:
The Presidency wishes to correct media reports wrongly stating that the judgement by the Constitutional Court found that President Jacob Zuma had broken his oath of office. The Constitutional Court did not make such a declaratory order.
The Constitutional Court instead ruled that “The failure by the President to comply with the remedial action taken against him, by the Public Protector in her report of 19 March 2014, is inconsistent with section 83(b) of the Constitution read with sections 181(3) and 182(1)(c) of the Constitution and is invalid.
Votes were cast, results read, the dust settled and the opposition walked out – oh, by the way, Zuma won: 233 votes to 143.
<h1>How Did We Get Here?</h1>
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Even if President Jacob Zuma does survive, this fragile democracy will face an acid test on August 3. Millions of South Africans will go to the polls for municipal elections in which the ruling ANC is expected to lose ground.
How did we get here? Well, the tension has built since 2009, when the story of Nkandla broke. Seven years later, South Africa&#8217;s Constitutional Court – the highest in the land – found Zuma to have unduly benefited from $15 million worth of upgrades to his personal home in KwaZulu-Natal. The court stated Zuma failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution as the supreme law of the land.
A humbled Zuma apologized publicly to the country on television. The ANC backed him.
&#8220;I wish to reiterate that any action that has been found not to be in keeping with the constitution happened because of a different approach and different legal advice&#8230; I never knowingly or deliberately set out to violate the constitution&#8230; It was never my intention not to comply with the remedial action taken against me by the Public Protector [Thuli Madonzela] or to disregard her office.&#8221;
Other loyalists called for more than an apology. Trevor Manuel, South Africa&#8217;s former finance minister, wanted resignation. Even Ahmed Kathrada, who faced death with Nelson Mandela in the 1960s, wrote a letter calling for Zuma to go.
&#8220;I know that if I were in the President’s shoes‚ I would step down with immediate effect,&#8221; wrote Kathrada.

Go Now, Mr President!

Mmusi Maimane – Democratic Alliance leader: It is an insult to them [miners and their families] that three years later, not a single person has been criminally prosecuted or taken political responsibility for the tragic events. The report that was supposed to provide some sense of closure has now called for further investigations. But how many more years will it be before those responsible are held to account? The constitution clearly vests political accountability for the South African Police Service with the Minister and National Commissioner; at the very least former Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, and the National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega, should take political responsibility for the events that occurred under their watch. There is something very wrong with a system that allows those who presided over the slaughter to remain in office without any penalties.
Dali Mpofu – Miners’ lawyer: The commission did not look at the underlying issues. It confined itself to the issues of who pulled the trigger and all sorts of technicalities about who was standing where without really interrogating the fundamental underlying issues that caused the conflict in the first place.
Julius Malema – Economic Freedom Fighters leader: While the commission of inquiry had the power and mandate to recommend further actions and persecutions in certain cases, the Economic Freedom Fighters believes that the actions of [Deputy President] Cyril Ramaphosa and Mthethwa had a casual effect on the mass killings in Marikana. We think Judge Farlam did a good job. He did what he was asked to do, although within a short period because of the terms of reference, he did not have an opportunity to dig deep.
Livhuwani Mammburu – National Union of Mineworkers spokesperson:  We welcome the report, but from the beginning we were worried when the strike started. The commission found that the strikers who marched to NUM’s offices did so with violent intent and found that the actions of the NUM can’t be criticized. We welcome the recommendation for further investigation. We maintain that NUM officials and members acted within the parameters of private defence.
Joseph Mathunjwa – Head of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union: There is no truth, no justice. I think the commission was made as a gesture not to find the truth. This was another two years wasted. If there is no truth that is unearthed, there will be no healing. This was just a cover up exercise to cover the executives and the blunder of the government.
Zwelinzima Vavi – Former General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions: I find this insulting and insensitive. A new commission of inquiry must look at the conditions of both work and living conditions. Once the terms of the commission were amended, with the president writing another letter in April reminding the commission of inquiry that it can do everything except to make a finding on the executives, then you must know that by design the commission by Farlam was a fuss. It was never intended to give the victims and South Africa a point of knowing that they now are in a better position because the facts are out and they know who is responsible for all the deaths of the workers that perished. There is no truth, there is no justice… Where is the commission on the fitness of those who appointed them, the President for example? The commission is designed not to find the truth. It is designed to put junior officials as the fall guys.
Mosiuoa Lekota – Congress of the People leader: The moment that the terms of reference were amended to say the commission may not make any findings on the executives is one of the most shocking things that suggest that it was an order not to probe the central issue of political accountability to the people and to the nation.
Gareth Newham – Head of the Governance, Crime and Justice Division at the Institute for Security Studies: The deaths of the miners are unjustifiable. There is no finding that the police were under attack. The four commanders who testified, who stood in front of those members who shot, said they didn’t feel under attack. The police have not showed that what happened at scene two was self-defence.

No Truth, No Justice

As a journalist, I will always remember the evening of June 25, 2015. At 7PM, I was driving in the darkness along the Magaliesberg Mountains, with my eyes trained on the tar of the N4 highway and my ears straining to hear the radio over the engine, towards Marikana the land of despair.
On this night, Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, spoke over the radio the findings of the Marikana Commission overseen by retired Judge Ian Farlam. It was a long and painstaking business the FORBES AFRICA team dubbed the Misery Commission.
The Marikana Massacre, between 11 and 16 August 2012, sprang from a wildcat strike, outside the Lonmin mine, along South Africa’s Rustenburg platinum belt, 120 kilometers north west of Johannesburg. Forty-four people, including miners, security guards and police, were killed.
It was on May 14, 2013, nine months after the massacre, when I first laid eyes on this hill where people died. It rang with the chants of thousands of miners on another wildcat strike. The protestors littered the hill, dressed in the green of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and carrying knobkerries. The atmosphere was tense as they marched to the Wonderkop Stadium, a kilometer away.
I remember asking journalists then, where they had been when the gunfire started on August 16, 2012? They would point, like hounds to a scent, at patches of dirt etched in their memories. The spots where they dived for cover from the gunfire that brought an end to the lives of 34 miners.
On June 25, 2015, as the report outlining that day was released and the expected portion of blame given, the night air held a deafening silence. I remember jumping out the car, opening the boot and shivering to set up a tripod and camera. The hill was cold and barren under the starry sky.
We drove around the township searching for people who had been listening to the broadcast. To our disappointment, many that were awake did not watch, or even know the report was being released. On this night, Bongikhaya Ndumndum, a former pipe maintenance worker at the mine, was in his home on the corner of the township, meters away from the quiet hill. He didn’t hear the news.
“I remember the police being here. When the police started shooting I ran,” recalls Ndumndum.
The Commission sat for 300 days, ringed by journalists from around the world, in the heart of Pretoria. Among suits, laptops and lever arch files were the truths of how the massacre happened.
Farlam’s 600-page document was summarized by Zuma in 24 minutes.
The report absolved a number of key players. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a shareholder of Lonmin, who allegedly sent an email to other shareholders to deal with the problem; Minister of Women in the Presidency, and former Mining Minster, Susan Shabangu; Minister of Arts and Culture, and former Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa; and Joseph Mathunjwa, the Head of Amcu, were exonerated.
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Others, according to the enquiry, did not easily escape. The Commission recommended a full investigation into the criminal liability of all the members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) involved. The killings and assaults prior to August 16, 2012, should be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions‚ for further investigation.
The Commission also ordered a probe in National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega’s fitness to hold office. Both the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Amcu are accused of not exercising control over its members and endangering bystanders. Lonmin is accused of failing to comply with its housing obligations, which created the environment to begin the strike.
It also issued that a panel should revise the strategies of public order policing within SAPS and implement proper protocols to best dissolve violent clashes. The SAPS training methods were proved to be inadequate and should be revised, including basic first aid training.
It was not closure for all. As the night stretched on, we found a group of journalists who had returned from inside the iron fences of Lonmin. In a small TV room, the families of the victims and their legal representatives waited anxiously for the findings, but by the time the president had finished, the mines had not set up the TV, a small but telling irritation for the families.
Just another cold night on the fields of the Misery Commission.

The Slaughter Of 34 Miners That Shocked The World

For most of 2014, Thuli Madonsela’s name has been kicked around the political scene like a tin can.
The fight between her and the South African government is all about Nkandla – the private home of South African President Jacob Zuma that sits on a vast tract of land. It cost over R200 million ($18 million) of, supposedly, taxpayers’ money to renovate. The president claims to have taken out an R800,000 ($71,000) loan for the purposes of the renovations. Besides the thatched huts built for his family and the beautiful landscape of the KwaZulu-Natal province, its best feature, by far, is what has become known as the ‘fire pool’. It has been explained away by his spin doctors, for it is not a recreational swimming pool but a water reservoir in case of fire.
Who would be bold enough to investigate these allegations against the head of state? That woman is public protector Madonsela.
“I don’t see it as me versus the government, it’s my team versus maladministration. For any government, if they want to govern in perpetuity, maladministration is an enemy because your ability to govern, or the authority people give you to govern, is withdrawn one piece at a time if there is maladministration,” she says.
The investigation began in December 2011 when a citizen lodged a complaint to the public protector’s office regarding how the country was spending its money. A few months later, another citizen lodged a complaint against the president, under the Executive Members’ Ethics Act, accusing him of using money he was not entitled to. Madonsela had 30 days to respond.
“Firstly, when the complaint was made, I didn’t think that it was going against the president because procurement is not a presidential matter. So at no stage did I think there would be any direct involvement with the president.”
The public protector’s office compiled information from the ministers, some of whom were also under investigation. The investigation team began asking harder questions, which raised a few red flags.
“The minister of police said he was going to give us information, so we were expecting it. Then he said when he comes back from his honeymoon, he will give us the necessary information. When he came back he wrote us a letter saying that he doesn’t understand why we were doing this investigation because as ministers they have everything under control and they are investigating [the matter].”
“In reality most of the cases that take our time on a day-to-day basis are from ordinary people, who are just grappling with being denied one or another service. Usually people who are struggling with an ID or permanent residence, people who are struggling with a grant and also people who have been unfairly treated in employment situations in government and who can’t go to the CCMA, or can’t go to the public service commission, or who would go to those but the service processes take forever.”
The frenzy has thrust Madonsela in the public eye. Many people expect her to be a loud and aggressive woman.
“Some man once saw me and he seemed almost disappointed in meeting me, we were doing a walk about the mall and he said to me, ‘Oh aunty you’re just a little girl, I thought you were taller.’ Then I said to my team, ‘He always made me feel guilty that I’m not taller,’” she laughs.
In her spare time, when she’s not flexing her muscles, she enjoys reading magazines and listening to classical music. At home, she jokingly admits, her children often remind her that she is not the ‘PP’, but simply mom.
“I think other people fear for my family more than I do. My view on it, and this is the view my team takes, is that if anyone wanted to do anything wrong to me they would have done it at the early stages of this investigation. You don’t let the investigation complete and then you want to do something to someone because what would that achieve?”
After her term in office, Madonsela has set her sights on writing.
“When I finish, for a year or two, I would like to focus on writing, writing about the potential of this office [of the public protector], not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the world. It has enormous potential, but it’s not fully known, understood and exploited because it’s an office that has potential for transformative work.”

The Tiger On The President’s Back

She walks into the room with great confidence, wearing a full black suit. Although she is on holiday, she has made time to meet FORBES WOMAN AFRICA – that is just the type of person she is. She reaches out her hand, introduces herself and apologizes for being late. It is hard to believe that this poised figure is Thuli Madonsela, whose name is being kicked around the political scene like an empty tin can.
The fight between her and the South Africa government is all about Nkandla – the private home of South African President Jacob Zuma. It sits on a vast amount of land and cost over R200 million ($18.3 million) of, reportedly, taxpayers’ money to upgrade security. The president claims to have taken out a R800,000 ($73,200) loan for the purposes of the renovations. Besides the thatched huts built for his family and the beautiful landscape of KwaZulu-Natal province, one of its features is a so-called ‘fire pool’. It has been explained away by his spin doctors, for it is not a recreational swimming pool, but a water reservoir in case of fire.
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Who would be bold enough to investigate these allegations against the head of state? That woman is public protector, Thuli Madonsela.
“I don’t see it as me versus the government, it’s my team versus maladministration. For any government, if they want to govern in perpetuity, maladministration is an enemy because your ability to govern, or the authority people give you to govern, is withdrawn one piece at a time if there is maladministration.”
It all began in December 2011 when a citizen lodged a complaint to the public protector’s office regarding how the country was spending its money. A few months later, another citizen lodged a complaint against the president, under the Executive Members’ Ethnics Act, accusing him of using money to which he was not entitled. Madonsela had 30 days to respond.
“Firstly, when the complaint was made, I didn’t think that it was going against the president because procurement is not a presidential matter. So, at no stage did I think there would be any direct involvement with the president.”
The public protector’s office compiled information provided by several ministers, some of whom were also under investigation. Her team began asking harder questions, which raised red flags.
“The minister of police said he was going to give us information, so we were expecting it. Then, he said when he comes back from his honeymoon, he will give us the necessary information. When he came back, he wrote us a letter saying that he doesn’t understand why we were doing this investigation because as ministers they have everything under control and they are investigating [the matter].”
The ministers and security cluster opposing the investigation took Madonsela to court on the charge that the investigation would compromise the security of the president. Meanwhile, in December 2013, the 12,000-page provisional Nkandla report was published on the Mail and Guardian. Madonsela, a member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was accused of being underhanded. Some called her a heroine, while ANC loyalists hissed that she was a traitor.
At the time of writing, Madonsela could not comment on the findings of the final report. President Zuma was presented the findings in two capacities, as president of the country and the accused.
But there is more to her job than what appears in the media.
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“In reality most of the cases that take our time on a day-to-day basis are from ordinary people, who are just grappling with being denied one or another service. Usually, people who are struggling with an ID or permanent residence, people who are struggling with a grant and also people who have been unfairly treated in employment situations in government and who can’t go to the CCMA, or can’t go to the public service commission, or who would go to those but the service processes take forever.”
The frenzy has put Madonsela in the public eye. Many people expect her to be a loud and aggressive woman but are surprised by her soft-spoken nature.
“Some man once saw me and he seemed almost disappointed in meeting me, we were doing a walkabout in the mall and he said to me, ‘Oh aunty you’re just a little girl, I thought you were taller.’ Then I said to my team, ‘He always made me feel guilty that I’m not taller,” she laughs.
In her spare time, when she is not flexing her muscles, she enjoys reading women’s magazines  and listening to classical music. At home, she jokingly admits her children often remind her that she is not the ‘PP’, but simply a mom. She never fears for her safety or that of her children saying that, “I think other people fear for my family more than I do. My view on it, and this is the view my team takes, is that if anyone wanted to do anything wrong to me they would have done it at the early stages of this investigation. You don’t let the investigation complete and then you want to do something to someone because what would that achieve?”
Looking back, Madonsela has few regrets but there are things she would do differently with the Nkandla report.
“I should never have given the ministers a provisional report with the findings. And my team warned me against it because you are giving a provisional report for security filtering to someone who is one of the investigated…”
After her term in office, Madonsela has set her sights on writing another couple of hundred pages.
“When I finish, for a year or two, I would like to focus on writing, writing about the potential of this office [of the public protector], not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the world. It has enormous potential, but it’s not fully known, understood and exploited because it’s an office that has potential for transformative work.”
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Madonsela also wants to go back to the bar, this time as an advocate, where she will continue her fight against injustice. Clearly we haven’t heard the last of Madonsela.

Thuli Madonsela vs. The Government

In its five-year history, the community of countries that make up BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)—collectively home to 45% of the world’s population; 20% of output and whose contribution to global economic growth over the last decade has reached 50%—has been more pilloried than praised.
And its critics made it clear that they were not about to let up. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s newly-elected leader Xi Jinping, host Jacob Zuma, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met again on March 26-27, for the first time on African soil, in Durban, South Africa. They were joined by 15 of Africa’s 54 heads of state.
Bold announcements at the end of the summit did not seem to placate the critics either—including the decision to create a Brics development bank that could rival the World Bank and the IMF; the signing of a Contingent Reserve Agreement (CRA) to pool $100 bilion from the five countries’ reserves; as well as a Multilateral Agreement on Co-operation and Co-financing for Sustainable Development.
Although grudging acknowledgements were made here and there and backhanded compliments were given, the coverage of major American and British publications was around inherent problems within and among the BRICS countries.
“The alliance faces serious questions about whether the member countries have enough in common and enough shared goals to function effectively as a counterweight to the West. For all the talk of solidarity among emerging giants, the group’s concrete achievements have been few… partly because its members are deeply divided on some basic issues and are in many ways rivals, not allies, in the global economy,” wrote the New York Times.
Parallels were drawn between India, Brazil and South Africa’s strong democratic traditions on the one hand, and Russia and China’s autocratic one on the other, although the good democrats were not spared either. The host country came in for a hiding for its small economy and anemic growth rates, while Brazil’s economy had cooled drastically, and India’s hope of reaching double-digit growth had ebbed.
The BRICS economic development ministers, met ahead of their heads of state to tie down decisions for final approval. They must have wondered as to whether there was any co-incidence in the release, the day before the BRICS summit, of a comprehensive report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The detailed report showed how the BRICS countries hardly invest in one another, preferring their neighbors and the developed world’s major economies instead, like those of the European Union, the United States and Japan.
Previous remarks of President Zuma, criticizing the way trade was conducted between China and the African continent were hauled out to show how he had appeared to have a change of heart before the summit meeting. But the same was not done to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the 2011 FORBES AFRICA Person of the Year and head of Nigeria’s central bank, who has been just as critical of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as he was in the opinion article published in The Financial Times about how China has grown to be “a significant contributor to Africa’s de-industrialization and underdevelopment”.
The morning after the summit, China threw a lavish breakfast for the African heads of state. There are no prizes for guessing why it felt the need to do so.
With the promises of the BRICS heads of state from the previous afternoon’s session gnawing at their minds, African leaders were queuing up, one by one, at the office of their host. The purpose of the meetings were to strike the iron while it is still hot—ostensibly to open discussions that could lead to trade deals and to make sure they were not taken for a ride as guests who just came to hobnob and have a party.
Indeed, the time for African leaders to party and enjoy crumbs falling from their dishonorable colonial friends, while the looting of the continent’s resources continues unabated, is over. And so too should be the growing tendency of having too few people—usually a motley bunch of well-connected, cigar-puffing, whisky-drinking and posh-car-driving elite—benefitting handsomely from the opportunities that are being created by the world’s renewed focus on the continent.
According to Standard Bank, BRICS-Africa trade will increase threefold, from $150 billion in 2010 to $530 billion in 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, BRICS’ share of Africa’s total trade will increase from one-fifth to one-third and BRICS FDI stock in Africa will swell from around $60 billion in 2009 to more than $150 billion by 2015. The IMF also conducted a study, which indicated that the trade and investment from BRICS to low-income countries was deemed as a critical factor to protect them from the shock of the recent global recession.
With all its remaining problems and imperfections, Africa is a much better place today than it was two decades ago. But leaders would do well to remember that the reason coup d’états are frowned upon, elections are held regularly, and governments are a lot more open and transparent, is because Africa’s people are ready to take care of their own destiny, if they feel that their leaders are betraying their trust.
BRICS and many other opportunities that are sure to come our way need not be squandered.
And given our dreadful colonial past, now is the time to be even more vigilant. It’s the only way to deal with the derision emanating from pretentious, ideological dispositions of the western media, its commentators and research institutions—all of whom seem to have conveniently forgotten how they built their countries on the carcasses of Africans, their mineral resources, and how those structural adjustment programs imposed on the ‘dark continent’ by the IMFs and the World Banks of the so-called first world, have continued to play their part in strangulating many an African country, to this day.

How To Strangle Africa

The re-election of Jacob Zuma to lead the governing party of the most powerful economy on the African continent, South Africa, was never a case of ‘if’, instead it was a case of by how big a margin he would beat his reluctant challenger, Kgalema Motlanthe. What was a puzzling paradox for many opinion makers though, was how Zuma got more than 70% of the vote when the African National Congress (ANC) gathered for its elective conference in Mangaung on December 16-20.
Were those 4,500 voting delegates so dumb and ignorant? Could they have been bought or lulled to ignore the stuff that filled newspaper columns, radio and television programs and social networks? How on earth did they miss the groundswell of indignation towards their supposedly highly unpopular and bungling president? In which South Africa did those delegates live, that they could not see what the political analysts, commentators, journalists and opposition politicians saw?
Part of the problem is the fact that the ANC still follows an archaic system of electing its leaders. No ANC leader gets to openly contest, so that they could tell why they believe they deserve the top position. As a result, s/he who controls the levers of power during party election time gets to have an upper hand and, depending on how skillful or cunning they may or may not be, the ANC leadership race is always for them to lose. This is only a small part of the problem. Those chosen become the country’s leaders by virtue of the party’s domination of the political landscape. The bigger problem has everything to do with what has become of the over 51 million people that constitute the population of South Africa.
Greed, self-centeredness and dishonesty have become only some of the defining characteristics of South Africans as wealth accumulation, getting plum positions or ensuring they keep their jobs becomes more important than anything else. In the process they’ve become meek and timid, in many ways a defeated people, blaming everything and everybody other than themselves for crises they find ourselves in. They tend to let their attitudes and emotions, prejudices and prescriptions, stand in the way of appreciating the best that there is.
Take the media and political analysts’ reaction to the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC deputy president. When it became apparent that the billionaire businessman was to become the ANC’s number two, pages of newspapers and magazines, as well as hours of airtime were dedicated to full-blown ‘analysis’ of what he is going to do.
While there’s nothing wrong with someone wishing to communicate their wishes on how the ANC can best utilize Ramaphosa; the most interesting aspect of ‘Cyrilmania’ has been how glibly many have come to pronounce it, without any due regard to both the history of his re-emergence and the inner workings of the ANC.
Business and the elite media’s warmth to Ramaphosa seems to have everything to do with the fact that he represents that acceptable, affable face of the ANC—the one that fits the stereotypical image of a suave, sophisticated, articulate leader who will not embarrass. He is the welcome opposite to the polygamist country bumpkin they see in Zuma.
Almost without questioning, business and rest of the elite seem to think that finally, there’ll be a clever black at ANC headquarters where the party’s top six officials meet every Monday. Ramaphosa, the thinking seems to go, will tell Zuma what no one has hitherto had the guts to tell the 70-year-old struggle veteran about such things as inspiring investor confidence or catering to the sophisticated voter.
The truth is that not only is Ramaphosa nothing more than a benefactor of Zuma’s generosity, he is also a crowning success of his deft strategy. What is forgotten is that Zuma preferred to keep Motlanthe and that it was only after Motlanthe spurned the effort, choosing to stand against Zuma instead, that Ramaphosa came into the picture.
But simply because Ramaphosa was second choice does not mean that he cannot achieve the things that many now think he will be best-placed to accomplish. That’s not to say that Zuma is now suddenly in a mood, through Ramaphosa, to pacify constituencies he considers disdainful and unreservedly hostile. Correctly in some instances, incorrectly in others, Zuma’s comments often suggest a firm belief that most media are hell bent to destroy or undermine him.
What’s habitually forgotten is that only one man has a final say in the ANC and that’s its president. Given the way the ANC operates, the more firmly that person is in charge, as Zuma is now, the more people like Ramaphosa will have little option but to tow the line. The only time Ramaphosa will get reprieve, is if Zuma decides to anoint him. That’s if Zuma won’t seek a third term as ANC president.
In interviews with both men, Zuma insisted that he “definitely won’t seek a third term”. He did not wait for me to point out that after his election in 2007, he said he would serve only one term. Ramaphosa would not be drawn into whether he was keen on the top position. For now its “outside of my wish and imagination,” he told me. When I asked what he thought about the attitude of business towards the ANC, he replied: “The business community has not stepped up to the plate. It has held back”.
In five years’ time Ramaphosa will have the option to challenge Zuma, in the same way Zuma challenged Mbeki in 2007 and won, and Motlanthe challenged Zuma and lost.
While post-apartheid ANC leaders contested positions, often fiercely; they hardly represented fundamentally distinct visions of the ANC and the country.
One is tempted to conclude that ‘Cyrilmania’ is a clumsy, if not hopelessly inadequate effort, largely by those who disapprove of Zuma’s rule. As history has proven, the problem with that practice is that it almost always guarantees that such a move won’t be taken seriously, for ANC leaders don’t take kindly to being told by the media.
Another problem with ‘the government must do this, must do that’ tendency of South Africans is that it also serves to hide the inefficiencies of others who have the power and resources that can move the nation forward, like the country’s business and worker leadership.
Sick and tired, South Africa’s stubborn and resilient workers showed up the country’s lack of, not only political, but also business and labor leadership. Though rudderless, the workers successfully organized a massive wave of sporadic, unprotected, often violent and suicidal strikes. Although the workers lost wages and many lose jobs in the aftermath, they made their point. The ultimate loser, though, is the country’s economy.
Has organized business and labor taken the responsibility they always demand of government? No.
Hopefully South Africans will learn—and that includes the Ramaphosa fan club, which holds influential positions in the media and business—that it takes a lot more to exert real influence in their political economy and to build a nation that will be the envy of the continent. Creating heroes and villains is not the answer but a sure way to failure and disappointment.
Tempting as it might be for everyone to engage in the sport of exposing every wrong about him and blaming Zuma for all of South Africa’s ills, he is definitely not the root cause and the delegates to the ANC conference knew that. Blameless, yes, but he is at best a symbol of what is manifestly wrong with South Africans as a whole.
If there’s a lesson that history should have taught South Africans in the past 18 years of democracy, it should be that their nation stands to gain a lot more if they put themselves to the very test they put their leaders to. Everybody—including business, civil society, labor, opposition politicians, journalists, commentators and analysts—should wake up to the reality that they need to use their energies and the platforms they each have, a little more wisely and creatively. There’s nothing wrong with engaging, a lot more rigorously, but also truthfully.

Mangaung Unpacked

The road to Mangaung, South Africa’s judicial capital, is an uncertain one. Beleaguered, incumbent president, Jacob Zuma (70), is up against his strangely ambivalent deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe (63). Nowadays, no one is even talking about Tokyo Sexwale, a tycoon known to have ambitions to the post but who has just never been able to muster enough support.
Although nominations only opened on October 1, that did not stop warring factions from firing the first salvos, digging up dirt and leaking (mis)information to newspapers about one another. And there is evidence that even though members can now openly talk about, and even circulate list slates and permutations of their preferred candidates, somewhere in some dark alleys and smoke-filled rooms, connivers on either side are continuing to plan the downfall of their opponents, by all and any means necessary.
Not surprisingly, the stakes are high. With an overwhelming parliamentary majority in charge in eight of the country’s nine provinces, as well as the great majority of municipalities, the ANC is mighty. The fight over resources and the dispensation of patronage is therefore a real one. And plots are abound.
In the past year both presidential hopefuls Motlanthe and Sexwale have been subjects of investigations for their alleged involvement, directly or indirectly, in a scandalous UN Oil-for-Food program that involved Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The ANC Youth League, the first group to make it clear that they didn’t want Zuma re-elected, is among those crying foul, alleging that state resources are being used to silence the president’s critics. The league points to the disciplinary expulsion of its president, Julius Malema. The youngsters contend that Malema did nothing wrong and was in fact articulating resolutions of the league when he was kicked out. Malema’s comrades don’t believe that it is sheer coincidence that following his expulsion, the Hawks, South Africa’s elite crime-busting unit, has charged Malema for money laundering; the Public Protector is now investigating him; while the South African Revenue Services believes he may have a case to answer with regard to his tax liabilities. The league’s acting president, Ronald Lamola, says it’s “a political issue” they are going to raise at the conference.
The incumbent is not having any peace either. In October, following a complaint lodged by the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s Constitutional Court found that Zuma had acted “irrationally” by appointing one “dishonest” Menzi Simelane as the chief of the National Prosecuting Authority.
While Zuma was pondering that, new “looting” allegations emerged detailing how, on top of his rural village, which was upgraded to become “a mini New York” amidst a sea of poverty, around R248 million ($28.2 million) was being spent on a host of other improvements to the president’s private homestead in the area. The president has denied this, insisting his family is spending its own money to do the upgrades, and that the government is only taking responsibility for security, and even then at the insistence of state security officials. The minister of public works, whose department has the responsibility of looking after the residential and security needs of ministers and senior state officials, has however steadfastly refused to divulge the details of both the actual money spent and the extent of the work done on the president’s home.
In an unprecedented move in November, the DA, with the support of eight other opposition parties, tabled a motion in Parliament in which they declared their intention to impeach Zuma. Knowing that it has the overwhelming majority that would prevent such a move, the ANC called it a “frivolous and narrow publicity-seeking gimmick” that will never see the light of day.
The people who have the best chance of deposing Zuma—if they want to—are the 4,500 voting delegates who will be gathering in Mangaung for the party’s elective conference. Drawn from the ANC’s branches, affiliate leagues and members of the national executive committee, they are the ones who will have the job of electing not only the party’s president, but also its deputy president, the secretary general, the deputy secretary general, the treasurer general, the chairperson, as well as 82 members of the powerful national executive committee.
The voting delegates’ task has not been made any easier, though. In a rather outlandish practice, certainly for a party that makes no secret of its desire to lead the continent and the world, neither of the two candidates has to go through any form of interview for the job. The candidates are not required to present to the party faithful any vision of where they intend to steer the party, the country and the continent. In fact, they should not canvass at all. To openly campaign, the unwritten rule goes, is “un-ANC” and therefore frowned upon.
So Zuma’s campaign has been left to pronouncements made by leaders of his home province KwaZulu-Natal who, with 974 delegates to the conference (see sidebar), will have the biggest representation. Following the opening of nominations, the women’s and veterans’ leagues, as well as the majority of provincial executive committees have nominated him—although it must be pointed out that the branches may vote differently to the pronouncements of provincial leaders.
The pro-Zuma group is so confident that they are resisting any compromise permutations that are being bandied about by certain brokers, under the guise of avoiding blood on the floor. The Zuma slate, by the time of going to print, had him staying on as president, Motlanthe as his deputy, chairperson Baleka Mbete and incumbent secretary-general Gwede Mantashe also staying put. Deputy Secretary General Thandi Modise and Treasurer General Mathews Phosa are no longer wanted.
Motlanthe is being accommodated only if he doesn’t challenge Zuma, something he is yet to indicate whether he will do. But he hasn’t said he’s not interested either. At last month’s launch of his political biography, where many expected him to give the clearest indication, he was as vague as he has ever been. While at the beginning of his speech he had his supporters’ hope, talking about “agents of change” and calling for an end to “the notion that so it was, and so shall it be”, he still left everyone hanging when he somewhat abruptly ended his short speech by saying when he dies, eventually, he would like his tombstone to have the words: “Others made suggestions and he implemented”.
Afterwards journalists asked each other about the meaning of what he had just said. No one had an answer. As for the race, it’s still very much on—for better or worse.

The Rocky Road To Power

With six months to go before South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), goes to its elective conference, incumbent president Jacob Zuma looks set to get another term. And with that, a renewed focus on continental politics, for which his critics have chided him.
Zuma’s opponent, Julius Malema, the party’s rebellious youth league president, is not contesting the ANC presidency but is the spokesperson of a disparate group united in wanting the 70-year-old former political prisoner and intelligence operative removed from power. Their campaign though, has been dealt a huge blow.
Malema is facing several disciplinary charges and the party’s internal disciplinary committee has found him guilty on some, meaning that whatever the outcome, the young man looks set for the political rubbish dump. Unless a worthy challenger emerges between now and the December conference and goes on to defeat Zuma, he is set to remain at the helm of the 100-year-old political party and the head of Africa’s most powerful economy.
Among Malema’s most stinging criticisms of Zuma’s reign was that he had failed spectacularly where his predecessor Thabo Mbeki had done extremely well—in pursuing the African agenda. It was a criticism, and a comparison, that hurt Zuma and one that he has since looked eager to correct.
So, on March 20, when Zuma walked into the Sandton studios of pan-African television channel CNBC Africa for a live hour-long interview, with some of the continent’s CEOs and board chairpersons in the audience, he knew he had a mission to accomplish, or as his aides would have probably preferred to put it, he had a myth or two to debunk.
Sitting opposite CNBC Africa’s chief editor Godfrey Mutizwa, and occasionally fielding questions during crossings to CEOs in countries like Nigeria and Kenya, Zuma showed composure for someone who has countenanced perhaps harsher criticism than any post-apartheid president.
While some of the condemnation prior to his election had a lot to do with his indiscretions, which in turn led to sexual assault charges against him, others were in subtle ways questioning whether a man with only a primary-school education, would be able to fill the shoes of his Sussex-educated predecessor and intellectual, Mbeki. Was he best suited to preside over an ambitious country that not only likes to punch above its weight, and which likes to be loved, but is also the most sophisticated African economy?
The more Zuma sold his optimistic disposition of the continent to the CNBC viewers and the studio audience, the more friends he seemed to be making among the attendant captains of industry, many of whom wasted no time in praising him for his “insightful comments” and for “answering questions”.
One of the continent’s biggest “strides”, he said, was the formation of the African Union. “For the first time, we could define ourselves as one, as Africans and not as former British, Belgian, French colonies.”
The AU has been credited with bringing about continental political stability through promoting the culture of democratic elections as well as the principle of non-recognition of people who grab political power through coups d’état.
Zuma shared with his audience how the AU had advanced in getting member states to commit to investor friendliness, infrastructure development, better and responsible management of natural resources, environmental sustainability, education, and had now started talks about the integration of the continent’s five regional economic blocks. Asked to give timelines for the “practical implication” of the integration process, he replied: “It took two world wars before Europe could come together. Africa should be given a chance.”
A welcome sign of confidence in Africa’s future, Zuma added, was the inclusion of South Africa in BRICS, the increasingly influential group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China. “Africa is now part of countries that are going to determine (the world’s economic) direction,” he said.
“I don’t see a crisis. I see prosperity in Africa,” he told the audience, and with a great deal of satisfaction, not to mention his trademark coy chuckle that usually signals cynicism. “Other people speak positively about Africa. Sometimes it’s Africans themselves who are negative; who feel Africa is in trouble.”

Presidential Poise Under Pressure

American civil rights activist, Reverend Jesse Jackson, is no stranger to South Africa. He came to Africa many times as he led radical African-Americans against apartheid in the 1970s and 80s.
<div id="attachment_322" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-322" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-322 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_0241-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />Reverend Jesse Jackson</div>
The Baptist minister, who was also a US presidential candidate in the late 1980s, landed at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg in January as a guest of honor for the centenary celebrations of the African National Congress. It was a South Africa very different to the one he encountered three decades ago.
“The contrast between arriving in [what was then] Jan Smuts Airport and [what is now] OR Tambo airport, that in itself is hugely impactful, beyond this generation’s imagination. Back in 1979 there were no black pilots or flight attendants. The only blacks you saw were pushing brooms, they were under great intimidation and walking around with pass books in their hands.”
In 2012, the political issues of South Africa are far from over. This time around, Jackson, who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Junior in the 60s in the civil rights movement,  landed in the heat of debate over one of the great issues of Africa: nationalization.
For many months in Africa’s biggest economy, there has been argument over whether South Africa should nationalize its crown jewels like the mining industry. Radicals like suspended ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, who is appealing his suspension from his post as president, has called for nationalization now in the cause of helping the poor with education and employment.
Jackson says it needs to be on the ruling party’s to-do list.
“The idea is to somehow create a fairer distribution of resources. [ANC] must determine the timetable for that, but too few people own too much wealth and too many have too little. Therefore, there must be some plan for re-investment so you have a fairer distribution of drinkable water, housing, healthcare and education,” says Jackson.
When Jackson reached the ANC celebrations, South African president, Jacob Zuma, used his speech as an indication that the party may want to put the issue to bed, saying government had acquired the state’s resources and would be using them appropriately to the people.
In August 2011 Mineral Resources Minister, Susan Shabangu, said: “Foreigners will not invest in South Africa; Nationalization is a bad idea… The correct question should not be whether or not we nationalize; the question, in my view, should be: How do we make use of our vast mineral wealth to eliminate [poverty, inequality and unemployment]? Is this perhaps not a more productive debate?”
Shabangu’s comments came to the dismay of many young black, unemployed South Africans as well as activists like Jackson.
“This is government induced wealth and neglected poverty so South Africa’s having to overcome centuries of mal-distribution of opportunity. Some of your best minds were driven out the country, others were not allowed in the country. So you cannot dismiss the devastating long term, continuous resonation of the economic apartheid system. This South Africa is different today; you are now free but unequal. Freedom required the will to sacrifice, to overcome barbarity and indecency. Now the challenge is equality, which requires a different set of skills,” says Jackson.
The nationalization question will be decided in December 2012, at the ruling party’s elective conference, which will also be held in Mangaung, Bloemfontein.
For now, Jackson says, the country’s democratic progress is headed in the right direction, but there is still a lot to learn about transparency, checks and balances.
“It’s still early in the morning for the new South Africa,” he says.

Tag: Jacob Zuma

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