BBC radio on the arms deal and Zuma

Listen to quite a good BBC radio documentary on that arms deal, and Jacob Zuma. It includes interviews with Andrew Feinstein (ANC whistle blower), Gavid Woods (former head of the parliamentary watchdog of public accounts, Scopa) Beki Jacob (ANC intelligence), Same Sole (journalist), Rear Admiral Chris Bennet (SA navy), Patricia de Lille (Leader of the ID), Richard Young (Arms tender).


corvette SA navy
Originally uploaded by nic777.

It also includes a good explanation of how Zuma first supported and then turned against the investigation into the deal.

And this turning of Zuma by French arms company Tales would never have come to light if it was not for a fortuitous moment and an encrypted fax fell into the lap of investigators via a spurned secretary.

Oh, and theres some great singing as well.

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Was I wrong about the Zunami?

Mhambi has gone on record a number of times that Jacob Zuma might be a better president than Mbeki. He would struggle to do worse. He is more approachable, direct and that he would be a better candidate for the South African poor, because he is left leaning.

Well, is the new ANC more left? Or are we due for some more talking left walking right?

Two recent pieces of commentary and the actions of the ANC themselves have made me have serious doubts.

John Kane-Berman said earlier this week that several commentators argued that the real opposition to the government now comes from within the ruling party, not from opposition parties.

"There is a grain of truth in this, but it is mainly nonsense.

...on matters of policy, the Mbeki government seldom faced much opposition from either his parliamentary caucus or his party at large. Former education minister Kader Asmal last year spoke out against President Robert Mugabe. This belated lone voice aside, Mbeki’s policy of appeasement towards Mugabe has all along had his party’s support. Steal elections, ruin the economy, destroy the rule of law, squash human rights and ruin lives — none of this stopped the ANC, taking its cue from Mbeki, from cheering Mugabe when he jetted into town.

Nor was there much dissent on AIDS. Mbeki flirted with dissident theories and employed an equally misguided health minister, but nobody in the ANC spoke out while they thus trifled with people’s lives.

No dissent either when the government stifled the probe into the 1999 arms deal by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa). Scopa started off its probe in a non-partisan manner. Then Mbeki and the deputy president, Jacob Zuma, weighed in with the help of ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and the acquiescence of the speaker, Frene Ginwala. Mbeki was not prepared to permit an independent investigation.

Nobody in the ANC was willing to stand up for the right — and duty — of Parliament to hold the executive branch of the government to account for its expenditure of the public’s money. Since holding the executive to account is a parliamentary function prescribed by the constitution, this means that the majority party’s willingness to stand up for the constitution is open to doubt.

Nor is there much prospect that anyone in the ANC will object to plans to destroy the independence of the Scorpions or to undermine that of the judiciary.

These are all matters of principle, not party-political issues. But there has been little dissent on key areas of policy either. This includes the pervasive policy of racial preferencing. If black empowerment policies have been criticised, it has been on the grounds that they benefit an elite rather than the poor.

In Beards only sign of a move to the left Aubrey Matshiqi agreed:

This shift to the left is supported neither by the resolutions of the ANC’s December conference nor by the content of the budget speech, unless an increase in social spending should be seen as the victory of Marxist-Leninist-Hugo Chavezist thought over Hugo Boss-inspired policy orientations.

In my view, any shift in the short term that may occur in the ANC’s economic policy trajectory will most likely fall within the 1996 macroeconomic paradigm. This flows from my belief that the clash between newly elected ANC president Jacob Zuma and former party head Thabo Mbeki was more about a rift within the establishment and less about tensions between the establishment and an anti-establishment impulse.

Further more, the forces that united behind Zuma’s presidential ambitions should not be given some mythical leftist agenda — the support for Zuma by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) had no ideological basis.

Zuma is much closer to Mbeki in ideological terms than he is to Zwelinzima Vavi of Cosatu and Blade Nzimande of the SACP. This is why he went to the World Economic Forum in Davos and told investors there would be no change in economic policy.

Aubrey is also concerned about the increase in the budget surplus because of unspent Government money.

"What I know is that I am less excited about the budget surplus than I was before. It seems a large chunk of the surplus comes from money that the government departments fail to spend.

...This is the same Parliament that has very little influence in determining budget priorities. The problem is that the budget continues to be the tail that wags the policy dog."

But the problem is of course that the government do not have the staff and the skills to implement their budget allocations. This will be a subject of another post of mine.

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What should South Africa's intellectuals do?

Xolela Mangcu today writes about the role of intellectuals in current South Africa. To him, they have three choices, emigration, loyalty to the party and making themselves heard.

Now let me get back to the relationship between the intellectual on the one hand, and the party and the nation on the other. While it is relatively easy for intellectuals to opt out of party belonging, it is virtually impossible for intellectuals to define themselves out of the nation — unless they do one of three things.

ALBERT Hirschman described these three things as exit, loyalty and voice. The intellectual can divest himself or herself of national belonging through exit, which is often through emigration.

However, there are those intellectuals who remain behind but express their national loyalty through what Thandika Mkandawire calls “incantation of the thought of the leader”. And then there are those who also remain behind but do not belong to the party. They do not belong to the party because their insistence on critical autonomy soon runs up against the protocols and strictures of the party.

For example, it strikes me that the bankruptcy of the political party as an instrument of democracy and nation building has never been more exposed than it is in our country right now.

Wheres the good people?
To Xolela the choice is stark, and would require more good people to speak up.

An idea that has received little attention is the role of prominent personalities or civic notables from the progressive movement itself in speaking up for the values of the constitution. In short, a rebellion against the thuggery that often comes shrouded in the name of party and nation.

That would require good men and women to speak out more often than they have done over the past decade. The alternative is certain ruination.

In the last few days some have already spoken out. Lets hope this number grows.

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Party pooper: Andries Nel - Sies!

Mhambi has decided that its time to expose, to hound and to damn. Now and again I will chronicle online those ANC members (and others) that have damaged good governance and democratic values in South Africa.

Quite often important information is revealed in books, information that never makes it to a wider audience. Which suits some people just fine. By writing about this information online I will do my bit with the help of Google. There's no escape from information on the superhighway.

Mhambi reserves the right to profile who he wishes. Those who are mentioned and named are of course, welcome to reply.


The South African Parliament
Originally uploaded by Wildebeast1.
Charity (and putting right wrongs) should start at home.

And to me that home is the institution and people at the University of Pretoria who shaped my early lefty political views. Hell hath no fury like an idealist betrayed.

Hence ANC deputy chief whip Andries Nel is Mhambi's first Party Pooper.
(Andries Nel's response is here)

He was the pinnacle of lefty Afrikaner commitment at the university when I was a student. Other prominent lefties during my time included the likes of Hedwig Barry, Andries Bezuidenhout, Danie Brand, Irma du Plessis, Graham Maitland, Karin van Marle, Nico Bezuidenhout, Jacob van Garderen and Dawie Nel etc.

But after university Hedwig eschewed politics for a career in design, Andries, Danie, Irma and Karin went for academia. Dawie, Nico and Jacob stayed in politics of sort, and while Dawie has been doing sterling work as the director of Out (A gay and lesbian support organisation), Nico is working for IDASA in Angola, while Jacob has just been appointed the head of Lawyers for Human Rights. Graham, as far as I can gather is a big shot in the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Sies Andries

In the meanwhile, Andries Nel, who became an ANC MP in 1994 has been quietly climbing the ANC ranks. His loyalty must have been noted early on, as he was appointed to the Party’s whips office. Andries’s father, it must be noted, was a loyal servant of the Nationalist government.

Since the ANC has been losing whips at a rate of knots, Andries Nel is now a relatively senior deputy chief whip.

According to Andrew Feinstein of “After the Party” fame, Andries Nel has contributed to the demise of the moral fibre and the growth in corruption of the ANC thus:

On 11 October 2000 the then Chief Whip of the ANC Tony Yengeni wanted to see Feinstein and Laloo Chiba. These two gents had been selected by the ANC study group (the ANC component of Scopa, the parliamentary committee charged with investigating public accounts) to lead the questioning during the forthcoming public parliamentary hearing into that corrupt arms deal.

It was to be the most important public oversight meeting in the history of our fully democratic parliament.

Yengeni told them ‘I don’t think a public hearing is a good idea, this matter should be dealt with internally, like the Maduna matter.’

The Maduna matter refers to unconstitutional remarks made by Penuell Maduna, then minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, about the then Auditor General, Henry Kluever.

Maduna misunderstood according to Feinstein a fairly standard accounting entry, and accused the AG of hiding a significant loss in oil reserves, for bad apartheid-era reasons. He persisted in these accusations even after the error had been pointed out to him by Barbara Hogan, a fellow ANC MP.

Maduna refused to retract his accusations, and thus caused a minor constitutional crisis.

Rather than allow a full investigation, the ANC decided to exonerate the Minister through the creation of an ANC dominated ad hoc committee of Parliament. This committee was chaired by ‘an ultra-loyal ANC whip, Andries Nel’. (Feinstein, p.161)

‘Despite hearing damning evidence against the Minister, the Committee found in his favour.’

This is the precedent that Tony Yengeni wanted Feinstein to follow now.

To his credit Feinstein pressed ahead with the meeting regardless, and so the snowball that was the revelations into the arms deal (some of which are still being uncovered) was set in motion.

Yengeni, and most senior ANC members (but interestingly at this stage, not Zuma), including Mbeki, was furious that the hearing had taken place.

As time passed direct pressure was put on Feinstein to stop a thorough investigation through Scopa. The ANC had put out public statement contradicting most of Scopa’s findings. On 29 January 2001 Yengeni again called the whole study group (the ANC component of Scopa) to his chambers.

Yengeni said ‘Comrades we have decided to strengthen the Public Accounts Committee. Feinstein will no longer chair the Study Group. Geoff Doidge will be the chair. He will be joined by comrade Andries Nel.’ ‘The ANC, from the President downwards, will exercise political control over Scopa.’

The new members of the committee were openly hostile to Feinstein. As far as Scopa was concerned the arms deal would be investigated no further.

Sies Andries! Sies, skaam jou.

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