The clandestine affairs surrounding Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm have gone far beyond the theft of foreign currency hidden in a couch. With a president fighting for his own survival, he could be taking his eye off several burning issues.
The scandal is consuming the time and attention of the presidency, the ANC, parliament and the courts, and is ruffling an often-shaky government of national unity (GNU). The recent progress and stability in that coalition need to be maintained if South Africa is to continue the reforms needed to resuscitate an economy that, for 10 years, couldn’t even reach 1% growth.
The Constitutional Court’s decision last month to reopen an impeachment process rekindled a conversation that Ramaphosa, who helped negotiate the terms for that very institution, would’ve loved everyone to have forgotten. That’s not only due to the nature of the allegations, but also to the entire drama about how $580,000 related to the sale of 20 buffalo to a Sudanese businessman ended up on that Limpopo farm and, ultimately, a cross-border chase to Namibia, allegedly by one of the president’s men.
This makes Ramaphosa’s promise of a New Dawn when he took office in February 2018 look like nothing but a lie. It took two years for details of that 2020 theft to be made public.
A Zuma parallel
South Africans were done with politicians after Jacob Zuma. They wanted a repairman. The country was emerging from a decade of state capture. Ramaphosa was seen as the man who would restore integrity to public office and win back investors who had given up on the place.
His greatest asset was credibility. Business and much of the public trusted him. The New Dawn was built on that trust, but Phala Phala has steadily eroded it. It’s diverting attention away from governing, fixing our police force, and using the upcoming local government elections as an opportunity to focus on our ailing municipalities.
Whether Ramaphosa is guilty is becoming secondary. The presidency is distracted, consumed by self-preservation.
That is the uncomfortable parallel with the Zuma years. Ramaphosa’s final years could now, much as Zuma’s were even before he took office, be dominated by litigation, impeachment proceedings and questions about his credibility.
The danger extends beyond Ramaphosa and the ANC. The GNU has become a pillar of investor optimism and public hope.
As the impeachment process gathers momentum, the questions are ones that investors dislike and that the unemployed cannot afford. Can a president fighting for survival still drive reform? Will coalition partners hold together if the crisis deepens?
The people who pay the price are not politicians in parliament. They are young people looking for a first job, small business owners struggling to expand, and communities still waiting for services and opportunity.
ALSO READ:
Top image: President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: AP Photo/Luis Nova.
Leave a comment