To honour Pravin Gordhan’s legacy, the justice minister and the VBS accused must face NPA action

The executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Neesham Bolton, was reported as saying the following at a memorial service held by the ANC Gauteng at Johannesburg City Hall in honour of the late Pravin Gordhan:

“It is also a challenge for the ANC. How do you honour PG? Why do you dishonour him with the presence of State Capturers in Parliament? Some caused the collapse of South Africa Airways [and] Eskom and sit in Parliament today as members of the ANC and ... of other political parties.’

He went on to say: “Why do you want to claim PG is champion for what you stood for and there are those crooks in Parliament who are everything PG stood against?

The question is exquisitely pertinent. While the ANC cannot be blamed for the coterie of alleged state capturers who now fill the benches of Parliament on behalf of the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, there can be little doubt that the ANC has not done enough to deal with perpetrators of State Capture and has within its parliamentary ranks a number of MPs who personify the very antithesis to the accountability, transparency and integrity which we should demand from public representatives. Whatever his faults and, arguably the criticism of his continued support for the movement which he spent his life seeking to promote, Pravin Gordhan’s political vision was the exact opposite of these representatives. For him, personal profit and aggrandisement were at war with democratic politics.

So the question remains: the ANC celebrates the life of Pravin Gordhan while at the same time does nothing to purge its ranks of those who are contemptuous of the very vision of politics which PG espoused. A fine example of these double standards is the current impasse with regard to the position of the Minister of Justice, Thembi Simelane. 

Certain key facts, which are damning insofar as her record is concerned, cannot be gainsaid. The collapse of VBS was inextricably linked to the conduct of the Polokwane Municipality. During the relevant time, Simelane was the mayor of this municipality and hence the responsible accounting officer. 

Apart from the vast sums of money which this municipality invested in VBS, it is common cause that Simelane took a personal loan from Gondo Wealth, the relevant details of which have never been clarified. In particular, the applicable loan agreements and documents which revealed the nature of the repayment of the loan have never been made public. 

Were this loan to be genuine there should be a simple response. Simelane could produce the loan agreement, the nature of the terms of the loan and the manner in which she repaid the money to an organisation which does not appear to have had any business making loans, particularly to the mayor of the implicated party. 

Neither has any explanation been provided why, at an astonishing interest rate of 47%, the loan was apparently repaid in three tranches, significantly shortly after the Motau report into VBS was published.

Absent a public and justifiable explanation, the very least that could be expected from the minister of justice, who in terms of s 179 (6) of the Constitution, is responsible for the administration of justice and must exercise final responsibility over the prosecuting authority, is a fulsome credible explanation. 

In a political system based on integrity and accountability and in the absence of a justifiable explanation, Simelane should have requested that she step down as minister of justice, pending an independent and transparent investigation into these allegations. 

That she clearly has not smelt the coffee and has no intention of doing so, focuses the spotlight on the President. He should have suspended her pending such an inquiry. That he has made eloquent speeches about the legacy of Pravin Gordhan and commitment to integrity in public office only makes the position more hypocritical. 

Regrettably, we all know that the likelihood of any steps being taken against the minister of justice must range from zero to minimal. 

The question, therefore, posed by Nesham Bolton with regard to honouring the memory of Pravin Gordhan, should be asked of the President. We await a credible answer as to why no steps have been taken at least to ask the minister to stand down pending an inquiry.  

Failure to provide a plausible explanation as to the loan and failure by the President to take any steps to suspend the minister pending a proper investigation, can only justify the conclusion that the rhetoric used by politicians who claim to be fighting against corruption is nothing more than truly meaningless words. 

That the minister responsible for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) – by the way, the first minister of justice in the history of South Africa not to be a lawyer – is so shrouded in controversy to some extent reflects from the state of the NPA. 

The NPA’s publicity campaigns aside, and a number of cases which it claims to prosecute notwithstanding, the sharp point is that the key players singled out in the Zondo Commission’s reports have not yet been charged. 

The country continues to await any tangible steps which will be taken by the NPA to address this problem.

It is a subject of depressing curiosity that journalists who work for this publication have found key documents of the most damning kind which implicate various parties in the VBS scandal and yet these parties continue to operate without any legal constraint.  

Is it not fair to say that certain investigative journalists have far superior forensic skills than the NPA put together? The state of the prosecution of key players in the enterprise of State Capture demands that the NPA be placed under careful public scrutiny.  

It is regrettable that a similar inquiry to that conducted into the South African Revenue Service (SARS) by Justice Robert Nugent should not be implemented with regard to the state of the NPA, which is a crucial institution for the preservation of constitutional democracy. A similar investigation can ensure that the NPA remains properly accountable to the public it is mandated to serve.

Talking about accountability, the almost fawning atmosphere of the parliamentary committee that questioned Minister Simelane is further disturbing evidence that Parliament will continue to eschew a meaningful role in holding the executive accountable to the latter’s constitutional duties.

If the death of Pravin Gordhan at least focuses the country’s attention on the need to hold the corrupt accountable and to shine a spotlight on the political hypocrisy which continues to be exhibited on a daily basis, then in his death Mr Gordhan would have made a further important contribution to the future of constitutional democracy in South Africa. DM