By Paul Hoffman

Honesty will not be inculcated while corruption with impunity is allowed to continue. The first order of business of the new Cabinet should be to address the matter of ‘ending corruption’, as President Cyril Ramaphosa put it when inviting participation in the GNU.

Much has been written on the prospects of success of the new Cabinet which has many members drawn from a variety of parties that responded positively to the invitation extended on behalf of the ANC by its president on 6 June 2024.

The invitation to form a government of national unity was necessary because the ANC did not win enough seats in Parliament to secure the election of a president for the country. It has only just under 41% of the votes cast by the 58% of registered voters who turned up at the polling stations in May 2024.

It is a misnomer to call the new Cabinet a government of national unity, or GNU. Had all the parties in Parliament responded positively, a GNU was possible, but some made sure that they would become the opposition by attaching impossible-to-perform conditions to their acceptance of the invitation.

Others, more politely, declined the invitation of 6 June. In the end, 11 of the 18 political parties represented in Parliament formed a grand coalition government at national level that seems to like to call itself a GNU. The 11 parties have diverse constituencies, speak different languages and worship different deities. Their political philosophies are as diverse as they are as political parties.

Unity in diversity

Achieving unity in that diversity is the key to the success of the new Cabinet. The fact that the two biggest parties in Gauteng, and the country, could not find each other when forming a provincial government there does not augur well for the much-hoped-for success. Let’s assume that it is possible to overcome that stuttering start to 2024 coalition politics and that the ANC will be forgiven for short-changing its partners on Cabinet posts in the national government.

What is to be done to achieve the success of the new Cabinet in governing the country?

The president’s invitation to govern with the ANC relies on the Constitution and the rule of law as the basis for going into an alliance with it. His carefully framed invitation does not make any mention of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) – on the contrary, ending corruption is specifically mentioned as an objective of the proposed GNU.

It is also worth noting that the form of democratic centralism in which the ANC makes decisions of a political nature is not part of the invitation, nor could it be. Cabinets are collectively responsible for their decisions.

Collective accountability

Members of the Cabinet are accountable collectively and individually to Parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions. They must act in accordance with the Constitution – not the NDR, which is in any event a misnomer in a society both determined to foster “unity in diversity” and based on multi-party governance under the rule of law.

The Holy Roman Empire was described by historians as not Roman, not Holy and not an Empire.

In a similar vein, the NDR is not national, not democratic (in the sense used in the Constitution) and, after 30 years of trying, is certainly not a revolution.

The secretary-general of the ANC fears he will have to “kiss the revolution goodbye”. In fact, he should welcome the opportunity to do so based on the content of the wording of the invitation of 6 June. It has no place for the NDR.

Historically, the ANC was an all-black organisation of African nationalists. In more recent times it has admitted non-black members, but the attachment to African nationalism remains. The equality provisions in the Bill of Rights ensure that all are equal before the law in SA today. Unfair discrimination is not allowed and the Preamble of the Constitution aims at achieving unity in diversity.

The NDR aims at hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society. This leaves no room, once achieved, for opposition parties to take their rightful place in the constitutional arrangements of SA.

Waning fortunes

To change these constitutional arrangements would require a 75% majority in Parliament, an achievement that seems unlikely, given the strength of the opposition and the waning fortunes of those promoting the NDR.

Even an attempt to achieve a 66% majority to accommodate expropriation without compensation failed and has apparently been abandoned by those seeking to amend section 25 of the Bill of Rights.

The form of democracy envisaged by the Constitution, our supreme law, is multi-party democracy, not the hegemony of one party contemplated by the NDR.

As for the revolution: the transition from the parliamentary sovereignty of the old apartheid order to the constitutional democracy now in place, in which the Constitution is supreme and conduct or laws inconsistent with it are invalid, was achieved by negotiation, not revolution.

There has been no revolution either before, during or after the transition from parliamentary sovereignty to constitutional democracy of the kind defined in the Constitution.

Revolutionary agendas do not suit the appetite of SA voters, and the NDR should be abandoned in accordance with the advice to the ANC that Kader Asmal gave years ago. His advice was ignored and he resigned from Parliament rather than be obliged to vote for the demise of the Scorpions.

Parliament has failed historically to hold Cabinet to account in the dominant party state that existed in SA between 1998, when the first GNU ended, and 2024.

The new era may see a renaissance of Parliament, especially if its members take to heart the criticisms made of its role in the report of the Zondo Commission. There will be fresh new faces in the ranks of the opposition which will not include parties in the grand coalition.

Three watchwords

There are three words that ought to be the watchwords of the new order now dawning in SA. They are pragmatism, meritocracy and honesty.

The success of Singapore was built on these three notions. It progressed from an impoverished swamp to a leading nation in the world by applying all three notions to its decision-making and governance practices. The Chinese see the value of pragmatism. The test for governance is very pragmatic in the words of Deng Xiaoping: “I don’t care if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

Hidebound ideological posturing that occasions inefficiency in governance has held back progress and prosperity in many a country in which the application of pragmatic solutions to the issues of the day could have broken logjams and arrested slides down slippery slopes.

The ideology which informs the NDR has not worked anywhere it has been tried in the world. Secure peace, sustainable progress and prosperity that is shared have not and will not be achieved in SA by pursuit of the tenets of the NDR. The evils of toxic nationalism have been described in Chapter Two of Countering the Corrupt.

Perils of cadre deployment

Meritocracy involves no more than appointing the best available candidates for jobs that are available in government. This has not happened in SA due to the ravages of the ANC habit of using cadre deployment committees to inform the selection of public servants and operatives within state-owned enterprises.

These committees are so unconstitutionally oriented that, as emerged during the Zondo Commission hearings, they even interfere in the appointment of judges, thereby contravening section 165(3) of the Constitution.

The practice of cadre deployment is deplorable from the perspective of achieving good governance. Deployed cadres regard themselves as beholden to and servants of the NDR. They kowtow to the committees which saw to their appointment. This attitude sets up an immediate and intractable conflict of interests because the loyalty ought to be to the state, service to the people, and upholding our constitutional order, not to the revolution.

The mess in state-owned enterprises, the public administration and in organs of the state is largely attributable to the evils of cadre deployment. The practice must end and must be replaced by merit-based appointment procedures which do not involve cadre deployment committees in Luthuli House.

Corruption crisis

Honesty, in the context in which it assumes great significance in SA, involves the ending of the culture of corruption with impunity that has brought the country to the brink of ruin.

Honest procurement practices, honest administration, wherever it may be, and honest accounting for all that is done in the public interest are needed.

The culture of corruption is deeply embedded in the modus operandi of the ANC. Its leader calls it “Accused number one” in the context of State Capture. The “it’s-our-turn-to-eat” approach – which has the current SA ambassador to Japan proudly announcing that “I did not join the struggle to be poor” – points to the willingness of too many involved in politics to place self-interest before service to the people of SA.

Honesty will not be inculcated while corruption with impunity is allowed to continue. The first order of business of the new Cabinet should be to address the matter of “ending corruption”, as President Ramaphosa put it when inviting participation in the GNU.

Fortunately, help is at hand.

Chapter 9 to the rescue

As long ago as August 2020, the national executive committee (NEC) of the ANC passed an urgent resolution instructing Cabinet to rapidly establish a new, stand-alone and independent body of specialists to deal with corruption and organised crime.

In 2022 the DA adopted the notion that these tasks are best performed by creating a new Chapter Nine institution – an Anti-Corruption Commission.

Both the NEC of the ANC and the DA are essentially of one accord. They are informed in their respective endeavours by the rulings and decisions made in the Glenister litigation which created the criteria by which to judge effectiveness and efficiency in the anti-corruption machinery of the state.

These criteria are binding on government, but the current system, including the new Investigative Directorate Against Corruption, does not meet the criteria, especially as regards independence and secure tenure of office.

The beauty of locating the entity within Chapter Nine is that executive influence and interference in the work of the entity is eliminated because the executive is not involved in the reporting lines of any Chapter Nine bodies. They all report directly to Parliament. Happily, the new parliamentary set-up is bound to be very different to that in the sixth Parliament.

The IFP and many other smaller parties in Parliament support the thinking of the NEC in 2020 and the DA in 2022.

Before the elections were held, the DA gave official notice of its anti-corruption legislation in the Government Gazette. It also promised that it would introduce the legislation within 100 days of the commencement of the seventh Parliament. The legislation should be supported by all parties interested in improving the economic outlook in SA by tackling corruption head-on.

Foreign investment

A great deal of local and foreign funding for investment in SA lies fallow at present due to the prevalence of grand corruption. A clear message that corruption with impunity is over in SA will attract new investment, create jobs and help to improve the lot of the poor.

By supporting the new legislation the DA has in mind, the Cabinet will signal its fealty to the rule of law and the Constitution. The sustained non-implementation of the Glenister rules is a blot on our constitutional democracy that needs to be removed promptly. The political will to do so can be generated by an honest and pragmatic new Cabinet.

The current criminal justice administration lacks the resources and capacity to deal with serious corruption. The reform is a must; its urgency is self-evident. DM