Former president Thabo Mbeki says the illegal Phala Phala dollars scandal and the ANC’s reaction shows that the governing party remains at the forefront of corrupt practices just as President Cyril Ramaphosa warned three years ago.
On Wednesday, Mbeki sent a letter to ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile pointing out that the governing party rejected a parliamentary panel report on Phala Phala in December and last week voted against the creation of a parliamentary committee to investigate the origins of the alleged stolen stack of dollars at Ramaphosa’s Limpopo game farm.
The two events, as well as the party’s vote against another investigation into alleged corruption at Eskom, are “disturbing”, Mbeki said.
He said the party’s attitude could compromise “the relationship between the ANC and the masses of our people; and the role of the ANC as the principal defender of … the constitution”.
He said that in August 2020, six months after the alleged Phala Phala dollars were stolen from inside a sofa where the money was hidden, Ramaphosa wrote a “vitally important” open letter to ANC members in which, among others, he said: “We must acknowledge that our movement, the African National Congress, has been and remains deeply implicated in South Africa’s corruption problem.
“We have to be sensitive to the concerns that are being raised by our people about our role as a movement in corrupt activities … The ANC may not stand alone in the dock, but it does stand as accused number one.”
Mbeki wrote: “These observations by our comrade president are as relevant today as they were three years ago.”
The Phala Phala scandal broke out in June 2022 after former State Security Agency director-general Arthur Fraser opened a case against Ramaphosa and his chief bodyguard, Major-General Wally Rhoode.
Since then, Mbeki said, “many questions relating to this matter have been posed in the public domain”.
He said so far, nine months after the Fraser complaint, none of these questions have been answered, adding that a recent report by SA Revenue Service commissioner, Edward Kieswetter, found no evidence of the declaration to customs for the alleged $580 000 (R10-million) that Ramaphosa said was stolen, which “deepens the puzzle about what exactly happened at Phala Phala farm”.
“In this context, consistent with what comrade President Ramaphosa said in the open letter I have cited, we must be honest with ourselves and understand that many among the masses of our people will entertain the suspicion that the Phala Phala matter includes corruption.”
Mbeki compared Phala Phala to the Nkandla saga that besieged Ramaphosa’s predecessor, former president Jacob Zuma, saying the ANC should learn from history after mishandling the Nkandla allegations.
The party blindly supported Zuma against doing what he ultimately agreed was the right thing to do, which was to respect the remedial action taken by the public protector.
“Without doubt, the wrong positions we took with regard to the Nkandla matter impacted negatively on the standing of the ANC with many among the masses of our people.
“It is equally without doubt that any wrong position we take with regard to the Phala Phala matter will also in equal measure or more impact negatively on the standing of the ANC with many among the masses of our people.”
Mbeki said the Phala Phala panel found that Ramaphosa has a case to answer, but the way the ANC MPs voted on December 13 2022 to block the process of a further inquiry “communicated the unequivocal statement to the masses of the people that we do not want parliament to seek and gain a deeper and comprehensive understanding of the Phala Phala matter”.
He added that the ANC’s actions alienate voters and could cause the party to lose state power in the next general elections.
On the Eskom matter, Mbeki said: “It was very wrong that we took a decision to veto the initiation of a parliamentary process specifically focused on investigating the criminal activities at Eskom.
“It will have come across to the public as very strange and disturbing that when a proposal was made that parliament should undertake such a focused investigation into the alleged criminality at Eskom, we promptly voted against an eminently correct proposal.”
Mbeki said the ANC has, inadvertently, conceded more time and space to the criminality at Eskom to continue with its disastrous consequences.
“To be honest to ourselves, as our president [Ramaphosa] insisted, we must expect that the already existing gulf between the ANC and the people widened, as the latter saw the former refuse to investigate the alleged criminality which has resulted in these masses suffering from long periods of very destructive loadshedding.”
He noted further that it was a common cause that over the last two decades the ANC has lost electoral support. The party gained almost 70% support under his presidency in 2004, but 17 years later dropped to less than 50% nationally in the 2021 municipal elections.
In addition, the party’s own polling showed that 55% of ANC supporters no longer believe what the ANC said.
“When the masses of our people finally lose confidence in the ANC as their own organisation and dependable servant leader, our movement will perish and therefore cease to exist.”
Mbeki added that he was sharing his thoughts with Mashatile because late in 2022, Ramaphosa requested to be excused from meetings of the ANC national working committee and the national executive committee when they discussed the Phala Phala matter.
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