President Cyril Ramaphosa has no “long game” to deal with corruption. The only game is the African National Congress (ANC) held together by corruption – and run like a syndicate. So says Democratic Alliance’s Shadow Minister of Small Business Development, Jan de Villiers. He speaks to BizNews after the president temporarily suspended – instead of sacked – the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, and former Transport Minister, Dipuo Peters, after a probe into her misconduct by the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members Interests. He says suspending her for just one month “sends a loud and clear message that he is not serious about doing anything about State Capture or people like her who clearly are very much involved in the abuse of State resources”. De Villiers says it was within Ramaphosa’s power to turn the country around, “but that would have meant not running the ANC like a syndicate”.
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Relevant timestamps from the interview
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 00:28 – Meaning of the suspension of Dipuo Peters
- 01:02 – What forced Ramaphosa’s hand into this move?
- 03:25 – State Capture government
- 05:52 – How Peters managed for so long
- 07:28 – Perpetrators of corruption
- 08:44 – Upgrading Perers’ suspension
- 09:24 – Ramaphosa’s game
- 12:31 – Conclusion
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Highlights from the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
President Cyril Ramaphosa has no “long game” to deal with corruption. The only game is the ruling African National Congress (ANC) held together by corruption – and run like a syndicate.
So says Democratic Alliance’s Shadow Minister of Small Business Development, Jan de Villiers.
He speaks to BizNews after the president temporarily suspended – instead of sacked – the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, and former Transport Minister, Dipuo Peters after a probe into her misconduct by the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members Interests.
It was Peters who, during her tenure in the State Capture Cabinet, failed to appoint a chief executive for Prasa and unwarrantedly dismissed the entity’s board, who had uncovered R14 billion in financial irregularities. De Villiers points out that her actions, which the High Court found to be irrational and unlawful, also obstructed crucial investigations.
Read more: SAP slapped with R3bn fine in SA corruption scandal: OUTA demands justice for culprits
He says the finding by the ethics committee gave Ramaphosa “a great opportunity to do what was really necessary, and that is to show the seriousness of the fight against corruption”.
Instead, suspending her for just one month “sends a loud and clear message that he is not serious about doing anything about State Capture or people like her who clearly are very much involved in the abuse of State resources”.
De Villiers says the Peter’s case “does really come back to the effects and the culture” of cadre deployment. “They act at all times in the best interest of what they would say is the ANC, but what really comes down to the best interest of themselves, because the ANC is held together by the corruption, by the access they have to the corrupt activities of siphoning off taxpayer money and enriching themselves. It is really what keeps the ANC together. I don’t think that you will have half of the support for the ANC if they are in a position where they don’t have that power anymore.”
He points out that Ramaphosa himself has the power to sack the ministers appointed by him. “…that would be a great start to dismantling State Capture…to just remove all these ministers who have clearly been fingered and shown up in the Zondo report.”
Commenting on the oft-repeated excuse by many that the president is “playing a long game”, De Villiers says: “There is no long game. There’s only one game – and that is the ANC and the short -term gains that the ANC can make. I think anybody who still believes that he’s got some alternative plan, I almost want to say that nobody believes that he’s got some longer-term plan.
“It’s been a great disappointment because the reality is I think that if he played it differently, he could have been, in a sense, the second Mandela. I mean, he had the table set for him. He had everything going, he had the electorate behind him, he had even to some degree opposition parties behind him.
“People were optimistic about the future and at the end of the day, you know, we’re sitting with 40 percent rough estimate unemployment. The reality is that the economy is not growing, people are getting poorer, the inequality, the poverty, it’s getting worse. And I think it was within his power to turn that around, to change it around, but that would have meant not running the ANC like a syndicate. That would have meant liberating SOEs so that they can actually, well, changing SOEs so that they either become profitable or that you get rid of them. It would mean getting rid of the massive debt that our country has at the moment. It would mean standing up to the labour unions and saying, we’re not going to give you above inflationary salary increases every single year while the rest of the country is going down the toilet. It would mean taking corruption seriously and putting people, and making sure that people get put in jail.
“I mean, if he was serious about getting people into jail who are responsible for cadre employment, then he could have capacitated the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) and all the other law enforcement and judicial entities…saying, this is how serious we are about State Capture and corruption. We’re going to throw everything at it. But that has not happened.”
Meanwhile, the DA has written to the Presidency to demand that he revises his decision from suspension to removal “to reflect the necessary accountability”.
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