‘Good’ guys at top shockingly silent

President Jacob Zuma fails to realise that public venom is not restricted to Nkandla expenditure; Nkandla also symbolises an ethical rot at the heart of the state that citizens are no longer willing to endure, says the writer. Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams

President Jacob Zuma fails to realise that public venom is not restricted to Nkandla expenditure; Nkandla also symbolises an ethical rot at the heart of the state that citizens are no longer willing to endure, says the writer. Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams

Published Jun 1, 2015

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President Jacob Zuma seems unable to grasp what the Nkandla scandal has come to symbolise, writes Eusebius McKaiser.

Someone asked me on Twitter the other day: “Why are all the good guys at the top so silent?” I didn’t respond. It seemed cruel to point out the obvious: the guys at the top are obviously not good.

They had asked this question in the context of the release of the Nkandla report by Police Minister Nathi Nhleko.

We need not rehearse the obvious – that the report was an insult to every South African, regardless of political affiliation, because it is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy, which is the principle of constitutional supremacy.

It is hard to pick the most disgusting scene that played out last week: the police minister mopping his brow, his last bit of integrity dripped down his face as he sweated for his supper; the tragicomic video clips aimed at rationalising wasteful expenditure as a security necessity; or the shocking silence of “the good guys at the top” that the Twitter follower was asking me about.

Enough has been said, and eloquently so, about the disdain that President Jacob Zuma shows us by having no regard for the gravity of the Nkandlagate scandal over the longest period of time. He fails to understand the basis of our disdain: first, the cost of him unduly benefiting from the needless upgrades at Nkandla is that less money got spent on alleviating poverty and creating jobs; and second, he fails to recognise that much of the public venom is not restricted to the Nkandla expenditure but rather that Nkandla symbolises an ethical rot at the heart of the state that citizens are no longer willing to endure.

When the president asks why there is an obsession about one house, he reveals an inability to grasp what the Nkandla scandal has come to symbolise for poor and working-class South Africans. And while the middle class and the wealthy are disgusted too, it is, as always, the worst-off in our society who are most materially affected by wasteful, unethical state action.

Even so, I think it is worth spending time thinking about the question: “Why are all the good guys at the top so silent?” It is important because we are in danger of thinking that Nkandla happened because of one person’s greed.

I’m afraid the reality is worse: President Zuma is not a dictator. We live in a democracy. He serves at the behest of the ANC. And we keep singling out Zuma’s leadership shortcomings as a unique challenge for our democracy.

Actually, we also need to ask how it is possible that President Zuma can get away with it when there are supposedly good men and women around him, in his governing party, knowing that he is a woefully poor leader for our country. How is it possible that “the good guys” can allow themselves to call a press conference where they sweat for their supper as they try to convince us that a swimming pool is a security necessity and that more public money should be spent?

There really is just one answer, surely, and that is that the ANC is itself rotten. If not, the party would have been able and willing to rein in the president and make it clear that unless, for example, he is willing to respect the common-sense reality that he owes the public for the non-security upgrades at Nkandla, they might have to consider recalling him even.

Only an organisation that no longer has a functioning moral compass can be willing to ignore public sentiment, and the known facts, just to prop up a leader who is evidently doing irreparable damage to the state and brand South Africa more generally.

So, I am no longer sure whether there are countless good men and women in the leadership structures of the ANC and in the state. Don’t get me wrong: there are technically brilliant and very intelligent people in the party, the ruling alliance, and within the state. We have always, for example, been gifted with excellent leadership within parts of the economic cluster.

But when I say there is talent I mean it in purely intellectual terms. What Nkandlagate had made clear, however, is that ethical leadership is a necessary condition for this country realising its potential. There is no use in being able to stand up and tell us what work you have done on the National Development Plan as a minister, for example, but you shut up as your political principal eats at the trough.

When we casually think of ANC leaders like Cyril Ramaphosa, Trevor Manuel, Pravin Gordhan, Naledi Pandor, Ebrahim Patel, Aaron Motsoaledi, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and a number of others as “good guys”, we have to interrogate the assumption that they are “good”.

Can any ANC politician really be regarded as morally good if they say nothing when the state is being looted?

* Eusebius McKaiser is the best-selling author of A Bantu In My Bathroom and Could I Vote DA? A Voter’s Dilemma

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media

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