Mkhize cashed in on Hitachi Power Africa deal with the party’s Chancellor House that kept it afloat, the writer says

03 June 2021 – 15:29 https://spkt.io/e/1978461

Your editorial highlighting the good in health minister Zweli Mkhize seemed to be written more in sadness than in anger. Yet it overlooked a few points about Mkhize that do bear mention (“Will our Covid general fall?” May 28).

Before he joined President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet Mkhize was treasurer-general of the Jacob Zuma-led ANC. On his watch the ill-gotten gains of the Hitachi Power Africa deal with Chancellor House (the “investment arm” of the ANC), brokered illegally by Valli Moosa when he wore the hats of the head of fundraising at Luthuli House and chair of procurement at Eskom simultaneously, kept the ANC financially afloat. Mkhize cashed in the ANC’s chips with impunity, while Hitachi was made to pay a huge fine in the US for doing the deal.

When he was a “unity candidate” and presidential hopeful in the run-up to the slugfest at Nasrec in December 2017, Mkhize was guest speaker at a Cape Town Press Club lunch. He let it be known that he did not want to disclose his personal income tax returns when asked to do so by Maya Fisher-French. Lucky Montana has alleged in parliament that Mkhize tried to solicit a bribe for the ANC from Prasa while he was its treasurer-general.

Worst of all, Mkhize did nothing to repudiate the outrageous utterances of his cabinet colleague, Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma, when she told a press conference on 25 April 2020, that the pandemic: “… also offers us an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of some long agreed upon structural changes to enable reconstruction, development and growth. These opportunities call for more sacrifices and — if needs be — what Amilcar Cabral called ‘class suicide’ wherein we must rally behind the common cause”.

There is a special place in hell for those who take so lightly their oath of office, their fealty to the rule of law and their duty to uphold the constitution openly and accountably.

Paul Hoffman, SC
Accountability Now