Johannesburg - Sello Hatang has a marked hesitation in his voice when asked to speak about confidence lost in President Jacob Zuma’s leadership.
Reluctantly, Hatang - the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) - spoke about what he described as “deep levels of discontent” in the country.
“There is something that is not working and it needs to be fixed,” he cautioned. “It’s never easy to have to admit that things have gone so wrong. It was not an easy decision but it was a decision that was jointly taken with the [foundation’s] board to show leadership.”
He cited deep levels of corruption which robs people of jobs and services that need to be delivered, leading to service delivery protests.
“You cannot deny that there is a problem,” he said.
In a week of political drama in the courts - twists, turns and growing calls for accountable leadership amid allegations of state capture - the NMF took the unprecedented move of expressing its dissatisfaction.
It made public its views “on the wheels coming off the vehicle of our state”, and called on the ANC to take necessary steps to ensure that the vehicle of state is protected and placed in safe and capable hands.
The statement triggered mixed reactions from the Mandela family, with Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, lashing out at the NMF’s views for being alarmist, irresponsible and poorly substantiated.
But the foundation remained unfazed by this and its views were supported by the global icon’s granddaughter, Ndileka, in an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
The NMF’s statement, according to Hatang, came after a build-up of discussions and meetings with the ANC and civil society on the crisis facing the country.
He said the foundation had been “progressively” trying to address many of the issues by convening dialogues on some of the difficult issues.
In March, the NMF, together with other ANC stalwarts’ foundations, wrote to the ANC requesting the party to take decisions that would restore the people’s confidence in the country.
After the damning Constitutional Court ruling which found Zuma had failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution, the NMF raised its concerns with the ANC. But it was the results of recent local government elections, which saw the ANC lose power in key metros, and the growing voices of the party’s veterans on Zuma’s leadership that gave an indicator to the current discontent.
“Elections are the greatest measure of confidence of the people. If you look at what has been happening, from the veterans who have come out to say something has gone horribly wrong, and if you look at what is happening in our education sphere it tells you that there is discontent.
“Our country is not at peace with itself,” he asserted.
While Hatang said the foundation remained confident in the ANC’s leadership to restore people’s confidence in governance, he said it would continue to raise these issues.
“When Madiba established the foundation he had three things in mind: democracy building, peace building and human rights,” he said.
“When you consider the three, particularly peace and democracy building, it is within our mandate to have raised these questions.”
He said Nelson Mandela’s commitment to the ANC was unwavering until to his death, but added the foundation was not an ANC extension and did not support any political party.
Hatang said the NMF was troubled by memory failure in dealing with leadership issues by concentrating on individuals instead of constitutional imperatives that are in danger.
“Take for example the issue of Minister Pravin Gordhan,” he said. “We believe that it is a failure of memory to be doing exactly what we did in the early 2000 when, instead of talking about the abuse of state apparatus to hound down individuals, some resorted to even saying they would kill for Zuma.”
The NMF is set to meet with the ANC’s leadership next week following its latest rebuke of the party and its government under Zuma. It would continue to encourage South Africans to seek guidance from the governing party as to where the “state car was going”.
“We are a country that is good at dialogue and getting right decisions through it.
“It’s up to South Africans to help guide the ANC so that it gets the future that we all want,” he said.
“We are asking for a convention in order to at least begin to get to a point of understanding and agreeing on what kind of future we want.”
On the release of the State of Capture report, Hatang said what has gone wrong has to be corrected.
“Generally, the sentiments in our statement are talking about what we believe should be done to put back the wheels in terms of dealing with issues of corruption,” he added.
“And this (public protector) report, at least from media reports, suggests there are deep levels of corruption.”
The Sunday Independent