The VBS way – Stealing Money of the Political Kind

The VBS scandal, and the investigation report authored by Advocate Terry Motau SC, provides much fodder for those who have been highly critical of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). The meticulous nature of the report, with its details as to who received money with no justification for it (in other words, no loan agreements, no documents to explain why the bank was disbursing R16-million to Brian Shivambu) is going to be very difficult to attack. Motau is unlikely to have made mistakes in drafting it. Also, the context of this, in which it now appears that the Reserve Bank may have known in advance what findings the report would reach, means that the facts are relatively easy to ascertain.

And yet, by Sunday, it was confirmed that lawyers for both Brian Shivambu (brother of EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu) and ANC Limpopo Treasurer Danny Msiza were going to legally challenge the report. In the case of Msiza, Motau was given a deadline of Monday afternoon by which to retract the report.

It would appear that both Motau, and his client, the Reserve Bank, are unlikely to cower before that threat.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times splashed with reports on the lives led by those who benefited from the money, while City Press asked if (now) President Cyril Ramaphosa knew what was going on while the money was being stolen. In some ways, this is a repeat of the question that has been asked about Ramaphosa in the past: If he knew this was happening why didn't he attempt to stop it. The President, and his supporters, are likely to respond that he knew the only way to stop it was to remove Jacob Zuma from the Presidency. In some ways, that story does not appear to move the political dial dramatically in any particularly direction.

The same may also explain why both the (middle class) media and Twitter have tended to focus on the problems of the EFF out of the VBS scandal, rather than the ANC. It must surely be the case that this happened because of the political climate at the time. And that climate was set more by the ANC and Zuma than by the EFF. Consequently, the ANC has an order of magnitude more blame to bear in the scandal than the EFF, particularly in the form of Msiza and the various ANC mayors who forced their municipalities to place their money with VBS and thus allowed it to be used as a piggy bank for the well-connected.

However, it may also be that voters are simply used to the nexus between corruption and the ANC. In other words, it’s already priced in; it is not shocking any more to hear of an ANC provincial treasurer receiving millions, or being involved in a money heist on a grand scale. This understanding of an intrinsic link between the ANC and corruption could be the most searing indictment of the party in years. So, amazingly, it is not the party that is mostly responsible for the VBS scandal that is the focus of attention – it’s just the way things are these days in South Africa.

At the same time, the EFF exists in a different context. It is not just that it has been the group shouting “pay back the money” the loudest. It is also that it has been going out of its way to offend parties, news media, large groups of people, races, businesses and ideas, through racial invective and name-calling. As a result, it should not be surprising that so many of them pounced at the party at the first mention of a wrongdoing – and it appears to be a serious wrongdoing.

The EFF have also become champions at what some people call “whataboutism” (check in the dictionary under Trump/Fox News/Kellyanne Conway). This is a technique where if person A is accused of corruption, they do not respond to the claim, but simply throw a question back at person B, sometimes implicating persons C, D and E, who may or may not have a tangential connection with person B.

In our scenario, this often involves identity politics as well. In perhaps its crudest form, on Twitter, a person could ask whether a politician was corrupt, only be to be told that their ancestors “stole the land” or that they are “whitewashed” or a “702 black”. In other cases, when EFF leaders have been asked to explain their wealth, their response is to demand that people stop “policing black wealth”, simply not responding to the question along the way.

Now the EFF may be about to find that this is medicine that can go both ways. Whenever Malema, or any other leader, makes any point at all about anything, they are likely to be met with the response “what about VBS?”.

This counter-whataboutism is guaranteed to frustrate them intensely.

Meanwhile, it is also becoming more obvious that some recent events, particularly what appeared to be the unprovoked attack on Treasury Deputy Director General Ismail Momoniat, and possibly on former Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, were all about the VBS issue. However, in the case of Nene, the EFF’s main argument was that he lied and had to go.

Accordingly then, if it is found that anyone in the EFF leadership has lied, they must go too?

This could place Shivambu in a difficult position. He has appeared to lie in court in a hate speech case against a journalist, by saying that he apologised unconditionally for calling her a “white bitch” and then saying publicly immediately afterwards that he did not mean what he had told the court. He also appeared to have lied during a paternity case.

Then there is the EFF’s curious response to this. Julius Malema is a politician who can literally turn on a dime; he can change direction incredibly swiftly, and owns a pair of political feet as quick as anyone’s. And yet he has said that the EFF will only provide a full response to these claims on Tuesday, a full five days after the report was first published. This is completely unlike Malema’s previous reactions, and can only provoke further controversy.

Of course the ultimate question is what impact this scandal will have on the 2019 elections.

It is possible, perhaps likely, that the major impact is to further tarnish the reputation of politicians everywhere, and to strengthen the belief among a large percentage of voters that they are all incorrigibly corrupt. This is concerning, because it further reduces the legitimacy of formal politics as a whole, and could suppress the voter turnout.

Then there is the impact VBS might have on the EFF specifically. Up until this point, the EFF’s major problem has been in growing its structures, in gaining the capacity to campaign in all of the provinces around the country. Over the last few weeks, the party has been appearing to intensify those efforts, with its Twitter feed providing photographs of activists in EFF regalia involved in meetings with leadership figures. Some reports indicate it is making progress, and is growing its membership in a way that will have an impact at the polls.

The VBS scandal comes in the middle of these efforts, and may prove thoroughly disruptive. It may not just damage the EFF’s reputation, but also, perhaps, disrupt the flow of money it was using for this purpose.

There is still a long road to go before the 2019 elections, and probably more scandals to come. But the EFF is surely going to come out of this with a damaged reputation, especially as anti-corruption warriors, while the ANC’s reputation has simply suffered another dent on an already banged-up bonnet.

The ultimate question, then, is whether this will actually do anything for the one party untouched by this – the DA. DM