It beggars belief that the president managed to get through wrapping up the most recent meeting of the NEC of the ANC (its top decision-making body between conferences) without uttering a word about the scourge of corruption that has the country in its grip at present. The Unrevised transcript of ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa’s closing address to the meeting of the ANC’s National Executive Committee, 5 August 2025 as published covers a multitude of sins but is silent, tjoepstil, on the topic of corruption.

When, after it lost its electoral majority in May 2024, the ANC invited political parties represented in parliament to help it set up the GNU, the invitation was couched in terms that had due regard for the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law in SA. Both are regarded as supreme in section 1 of the Constitution itself. In the invitation there was no mention at all of the tenets of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which, during the primacy of the tripartite alliance between the ANC, SACP and COSATU, formed the bedrock of the daily activities of both politicians and those cadres of the NDR deployed to the levers of power in the public administration, the state owned enterprises and the chapter nine institutions; all of them put in place to secure “hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society” – a goal of the NDR.

One could be forgiven for reading into the absence of any reference at all to the NDR in the said invitation, an intention on the part of the ANC to part ways with the NDR in the interests of securing a constitutionally pure future in which due respect for the rule of law would take pride of place in SA for the first time since 1994. Alas, governance by sleight of hand continues apace after the formation of the GNU with parties which do not subscribe to the tenets of the NDR and could have been tricked by the constitutionally compliant framing of the invitation to join the NDR under false pretences. Certainly, the only member of the GNU to show any support for the NDR in the past was the ANC itself. Not one of the other members of the GNU have shown any appetite for the NDR, mainly because its strategy and tactics are foreign to the values and principles of constitutionalism in a multi-party democracy in which the rule of law (and not revolutionary doctrine) is regarded as supreme. The allure of the “NDR free” invitation to join the GNU was irresistible to all constitutionalists. On the other hand, those of the left or far right with aspirations of revolution (EFF), a reversion to parliamentary sovereignty and the promotion of traditionalism (MK Party) found the invitation to join the GNU unpalatable and declined to join it. As a result there is a multi-party coalition which has formed a fractious majority, while the MK Party and EFF dominate the ranks of the opposition in parliament, fractiously so too.

The president seems to have forgotten the terms of the invitation to join the GNU free of NDR baggage. On the contrary, he now boasts that the NDR has been saved by the formation of the GNU! He remarks during the speech that “despite all the noise through the GNU we have been able to safeguard the core progressive policy agenda of the NDR which is the core pillar of ANC policies.”

There is no honest way, in or outside of politics, to issue an invitation to join the GNU, which makes no mention of the NDR, couched in the language of constitutionalism, and then spirit in the revolutionary ideology which should have been abandoned decades ago, if only the ANC had paid attention to the admonishments of Professor Kader Asmal who urged an end to the NDR.

The fact that the ANC now congratulates itself on the survival of its precious NDR after the loss of the majority in parliament that assured the NDR’s survival until May 2024, speaks volumes on its trustworthiness as a coalition partner still hankering after “hegemonic control” of a kind which should be beyond its reach as it no longer commands a majority. This loss of power it experienced to its embarrassment when it tried to force through a VAT increase on short notice and came up against stern opposition which prevailed on the issue after some litigation in which those who took on the ANC prevailed. Taxation without representation, the issue that drove the American Revolution, has not come to SA despite the ANC’s attempt to introduce it via its unwanted and unnecessary VAT increase which it was obliged to abandon.

No doubt with his tongue firmly in his cheek, the president welcomed the “cooperation on the budget including with parties that are not part of the GNU” – a statement that turns spin into an art form.

It is perhaps not surprising that the president avoids all mention of the corruption that has the country in its grip. Bonang Mohale, Chancellor of the University of the Free State, recently boldly, but accurately, remarked during a wide-ranging speech he delivered in the USA:

“the great problem for South Africa is rampant greed ….[it] is essentially a problem for the once glorious African National Congress that has morphed into an organised crime syndicate, primarily because for a solid 30 years of our democracy, they held the absolute majority power in everything that matters”.

If it is correct that the ANC is an organised crime syndicate, which approximates the description given it by former Chief Justice Zondo, who spent four years wading through reams of evidence of corruption in high places in SA, then it should not be surprising that the topic should be swept under the carpet that the NEC keeps for that purpose. The “rampant greed” is the sin that informs the levels of corruption currently experienced in SA. These levels have not appeared by accident, they are there by design of those who have entered politics for the purpose of self-enrichment, not for the purpose of serving the people, which should be the primary aim of all honest politicians. Corruption is a secretive, calculated and insidious form of crime.

Part of that design has been to thwart all efforts to properly implement the findings of the Constitutional Court which, back in 2011, ordered that parliament pass remedial legislation replacing the Hawks (a police unit) with a body outside the control of the executive branch of government to deal effectively with corruption. The Hawks is still a police unit and is very much under the control of the minister (or acting minister or acting-acting minister) of police. The body “outside executive control” has not seen the light of day in SA, despite the binding nature of the court findings summarised above. In the absence of such a body, it is small wonder that the corrupt are enjoying impunity and are reducing the state to rubble in the process.

While it may be understandable that the leader of a criminal enterprise who is busy addressing the leadership of that enterprise would shy away from raising the topic of corruption, in the case of SA the president does so at the peril of SA failing as a state, stuck in a vortex of dwindling productivity, ever increasing debt and dysfunctional service delivery appertaining to the many and varied rights guaranteed to all in the Bill of Rights. These right the state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil.  The Constitutional Court emphasized the need for effective anti-corruption machinery of state in its judgement by pointing out that:

There can be no gainsaying that corruption threatens to fell at the knees virtually everything we hold dear and precious in our hard-won constitutional order. It blatantly undermines the democratic ethos, the institutions of democracy, the rule of law and the foundational values of our nascent constitutional project. It fuels maladministration and public fraudulence and imperils the capacity of the State to fulfil its obligations to respect, protect, promote and fulfil all the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. When corruption and organised crime flourish, sustainable development and economic growth are stunted. And in turn, the stability and security of society is put at risk.”

The newly appointed Madlanga Commission is going to have its work cut out for it.

Paul Hoffman SC is a director of Accountability Now