As the only effective bulwark against an inept ANC government, let us pray that the judiciary continues to never fail us, writes Tebogo Khaas.
Dear Black People,
It is clear that those who crafted our constitution premised their work on
two noble assumptions. The first was that only individuals of the highest intellect and moral stature would ascend to the highest office in the land.
The second was that irrespective of which political party constituted the majority in Parliament, members of the House would be upright individuals, guided only by their conscience as they discharged their constitutional mandate on behalf of us, the people of South Africa.
Crafters of the constitution surely imagined that only men and women cut from Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe or Steve Biko’s cloth would be considered for elevation to any of the three arms of state. It is evident that some members of the executive and Parliament are cut from peculiar cloth.
Parliament has failed to hold the executive to account. With respect to the latest debacle regarding the disbursement of social grants, it was left to the Constitutional Court justices to, once again, intercede.
With National Treasury not disposed to allocate funds for a proposed extension of a contract declared unlawful by the Constitutional Court, which extension Treasury also deemed insidious and in contravention of the Public Finance Management Amendment Act, it was thanks to The Black Sash’s intervention that looming social chaos was averted.
Constitutional Court justices were undoubtedly placed in an invidious position as they were compelled to legitimise the extension of the contract between Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) and the South African Social Security Agency they had declared unlawful
and invalid.
What is agonising is that President Jacob Zuma’s administration has, once again, inadvertently gifted racists a golden opportunity to arrogantly remind us, as Biko eloquently put it, that “white liberals believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are the divinely appointed pace-setters
in progress.”
According to Western Cape Premier Helen Zille and CPS chief executive Serge Belamant, we blacks owe it to colonialism for blessing us with the courts and technology needed to disburse social grants.
Their postures are wrong and there is a danger of their ignorance becoming axiomatic. Africans have been at the forefront of developing knowledge systems and progress long before whites colonised us.
The constitution is not the only sacred covenant Zuma has violated with impunity. He has equally trampled the ANC’s constitution, in the process earning himself the “equal opportunity constitutional delinquent” moniker from his detractors.
Zuma will probably be joined soon in his infamy by one of his useful acolytes, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini under whose watch the social grants fiasco brewed. She is unlikely to be censured owing to her proximity to and importance in the Zuma’s project to have his former wife succeed him as ANC president later this year.
Zuma can afford to scoff at the courts and society because his political ecosystem plays habitat to some equally extraordinary ANC national executive committee members; cabinet acolytes including Dlamini whose integrity owes its sartorial elegance to Travelgate; while Parliament boasts among its latest additions, an ANC MP who features prominently in the damning State of Capture report. They provide the necessary political cover and oxygen Zuma needs in his pursuit of self-interests.
That even some upright ANC MPs “temporarily lost their conscience” as they closed ranks during Nkandlagate informs us just how extraordinary these times are.
There is unlikely to be any respite on a weary populace as the ANC will, come December 2017, probably install its new leadership along factions with the expectation that those elected or appointed are obligated to ensure the status quo ensues.
Despite the fact that the 2017 ANC policy documents enjoin the proposed ANC electoral council be guided by the principles enshrined in the ANC’s now-defunct “Through the eye of the needle” policy document, this is unlikely to be adopted and, in the event that it is, its implementation will probably face gusty political headwinds.
Zuma has all but abdicated the Presidency. His primal fear and pre-occupation seems to be self-preservation. There are many good men and women in the ANC. They will, however, remain muzzled or ineffectual for some time. Only a seismic shift in the balance of forces within the ANC can help embolden them and hopefully save the party from itself.
As the only effective bulwark against an inept ANC government, let us pray that the judiciary continues to never fail us.
* Khaas is executive chairperson of Corporate SA, a strategic advisory consultancy in Johannesburg. Follow him on Twitter @tebogokhaas
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.