South Africa

ANC’s punishment for members behaving badly — a golden ticket to Parliament

29 Jan 2025

The ANC’s practice of kicking people upstairs has now become so common that those who commit misconduct in local or provincial government have nothing to fear. There is no incentive to avoid immorality.

Reports about the current state of Johannesburg and the fact the ANC may move against the leadership of its Gauteng province may raise hopes that there will ultimately be accountability for those who have created these situations.

Instead, as has happened so many times in the past, it is likely that those at the centre of local or provincial misgovernance will simply go to Parliament. As a result, the ANC benches contain many people who have failed at their previous jobs.

While the lived experience of many residents in Joburg and Gauteng continues to decline as a direct result of the actions of ANC leaders in both the metro and province, there are faint indications that those responsible will face some accountability.

The ANC has said it will “reconfigure” its Gauteng leadership, while calls for action against its Joburg Mayor Dada Morero grow ever louder.

However, the worst that is likely to happen to them is that they can look forward to being moved to Parliament.

This is exactly what the ANC has done many times. A brief look at the list of ANC MPs can remind us of their actions before they entered Parliament, and the impact they can have on governance now.

Cases in point

A prominent example at the moment is Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. She may face charges over her actions while she was municipal manager at the Ba-Phalaborwa Local Municipality. More recent reports have reminded us of how her conduct led to the financial collapse of that council.

At the same time, the ANC has, on a fairly regular basis, promoted someone to the National Assembly or the National Council of Provinces because it had to remove them from the situation they had created in a metro or province.

A recent example of this is Mxolisi Kaunda. He had shown he could no longer govern effectively as mayor of eThekwini. As a result, he was removed as mayor just after last year’s elections and installed in the National Council of Provinces.

This was to allow another person to take over and so improve governance. As a result, someone who has shown himself unable to govern as a mayor is now representing the ANC as an MP.

There is a long list of people who may be in the same situation.

For example, Cassel Mathale is currently the deputy minister of police. Before that he was the premier of Limpopo. From 2011, credible reports emerged that he was helping then ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema fix tenders in the province.

While he was never criminally charged, it was decided to remove him from the situation. But, as so often happens when a person has to be removed, the only way to sweeten the pain is to ensure they have another position.

This happened again in the case of Supra Mahumapelo.

So angry were residents about his governance in North West that there were violent protests there. Eventually, he had to leave office, leaving his province in chaos.

The situation was so bad that Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma (then Cogta minister) found the provincial administration was unable to fulfil its constitutional duty to govern.

Yet he was for a time the chair of the Dirco committee in Parliament.

In the Northern Cape, Sylvia Lucas found herself in an impossible position after Zamani Saul won the ANC provincial election there in 2017. Again, the solution was to move her to Parliament.

Boyce Maneli was the mayor of the West Rand District Municipality when it deposited money into VBS against Treasury regulations. While it might seem obvious that he should bear some responsibility for what happened, he was eventually reinstated by the national dispute resolution committee of the ANC.

He is now an MP.

In Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina found himself politically isolated after Malema’s EFF refused to vote for him as mayor after the 2021 local elections.

Despite credible reports from the Amabhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism that he used council money to make donations to private companies, that he was involved in a “hushed-up crash” while driving a “borrowed” VIP car, and that he led the ANC in that region while it lost significant support, he too went to Parliament.

First, he became deputy minister of trade, industry and competition, and is now the chair of that portfolio’s parliamentary standing committee.

This is despite the fact he publicly attacked President Cyril Ramaphosa, claiming before the 2017 Nasrec Conference that “I will never serve under Cyril”.

In his current position, as Raymond Joseph has explained in GroundUp, Masina has attacked the leadership of the National Lotteries Commission which is trying to clean up after the corruption that went before them.

In other words, it appears the ANC is willing to tolerate someone who is undermining efforts to prevent corruption and to hold those who were corrupt accountable.

Cabinet ministers

Of course, it is not just people who have failed while in local or provincial government who have ended up in Parliament.

In at least two cases it is people who have comprehensively failed as Cabinet ministers and shown themselves to be corrupt, who are still there.

In 2013, Dina Pule was castigated by a parliamentary committee dominated by ANC members for giving communications department contracts to her “boyfriend” at the time.

In 2014, despite being included in the ANC’s national list for Parliament, she was not ultimately appointed. This was clearly on the grounds that it would not be correct for her to return, considering the findings against her.

And yet, despite that, she is once again an MP for the ANC.

And, of course, Malusi Gigaba, a man found to have lied under oath, who was found by the Zondo Commission to have acted for the Guptas, is still an MP.

He is currently co-chair of the parliamentary defence committee. This means he is supposed to lead Parliamentary oversight of the actions that have led to 13 of our soldiers dying in the DRC.

Common practice

It should be remembered, of course, that in many political situations and many democracies the practice of removing a person at the centre of a scandal and “kicking them upstairs” is common.

In the UK, before reforms to the House of Lords, many MPs at the centre of scandals were sent there to remove them from positions.

Even countries that are not democratic have done this.

After the Information Scandal in the 1970s, the apartheid government found it difficult to entirely remove BJ Vorster. He was removed as prime minister but appointed state president to allow PW Botha to take over as prime minister (this was before Botha then gave the presidency more extensive powers, which he then assumed himself).

But this practice has now become so common in our situation that those who commit misconduct in local or provincial government have nothing to fear. There is no incentive to avoid immorality.

Instead, they can engage in wrongdoing knowing the worst punishment they receive will be getting a chance to display their ability to weaken governance in Parliament. DM

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South Africa

Cases in point

Cabinet ministers

Common practice