Is Mokonyane a lone ranger in fight against corruption?

Once in a while you come across a politician who leads from the front and lives by example. And so when you have a premier who does not hesitate to show an MEC the door, is not afraid to show the rebels in the taxis the middle finger when they threaten violence and has already taken action against a civil servant who has been pointed out for impropriety in the face of the usually thick air of blackmail in Gauteng, then maybe there is hope. But quite frankly we do not have a culture of politicians firing others in this country and so the question is will it be the same script of half action and same cast of the one that got away and the action woman who will become the fall guy?

A few years ago in a big tent event meeting with the residence of Orange Farm in Gauteng, Nomvula Mokonyane, then the MEC for housing berated the residents for not taking care of the assets of the nation — the RDP houses. She berated them for selling RDP houses meant for the poor as well as for the bad habit of double dipping — where one family applies for more than one RDP house and then rents one out to make a quick buck. Mokonyane is an excellent and passionate speaker — reading from no dry official text, expressing everything from the heart. The occasion was the handover of houses built by the corporate sector as part of the wonderful programme initiated by habitat for humanity and supported by her good office. I was floored. It is not often that a politician when given, an opportunity to gloat especially about work she really did not do, will use the platform to be forthright with the citizens and express that which is not a popular tune with the citizens. The same cannot be said about many a politician in our country on all sides of the political divide.

I was therefore not entirely surprised when I learnt what went on behind the scenes before we could publicly learn that an MEC who had hardly warmed her seat was fired from the provincial government for something that in true cadre defence and deployment tradition could have been blamed on someone else — staff, underlings, anybody but the politician who should fry. I have reliably learnt that there was none of the usual nonsense of face-saving and protectionist tendencies when the axe had to fall. It was a case of “please save us all and do the honourable thing”. The mind boggles really. It is not like the poor MEC tried to get a fake driver’s licence — the chairperson of the ANC, Baleka Mbete, tried a few years ago — it’s not like she negotiated a 48 percent discount like Tony Yengeni did, neither did she forge the signature of the premier like Carl Niehaus or steal openly from parliament like Nyami Booi … none of these got the boot for those minor indiscretions but she got the boot for basic omission — not ensuring that she collects her own car from the dealership (who sends a husband to collect a car from a dealer anyway these days) … I digress. Swift and clinical action by the headmaster. “Get out of here before you embarrass us all” was the clear message of she who is affectionately known as “Mama Action”.

This you can only call political bravado. Now, Mokonyane is not without her faults. But who in the ANC government has ever seriously fired another politician? As if that is not enough she went on to suspend a powerful civil servant who is alleged to have every second politician in the current and previous administration in his pocket. He shall of course remain innocent until proven otherwise. We all know the monumental corruption that characterises areas of government such as the GSSC and the Gautrain project. It is an open secret that many politicians are being bankrolled by the largesse from these projects through shady front companies, dodgy trusts, proxy shareholding and so the rot goes on. Now it seems to me that Mokonyane should naturally set her eyes on those gold diggers if she has nothing to fear. It is going to be very bad indeed when one comrade exposes another.

Now the suspended head of department for transport in Gauteng is not the sort of fellow who will go down alone if at all. Should Mokonyane insist on going the full hog to finish what she started, “die poppe sal dans“. Usually with politicians when big jobs are on the line and people’s reputations at stake the script hardly ever ends with a clear guilty verdict. Methinks it will be the case of “same script different cast”. The script usually gets muddled with some or other underhanded deal that will see the accused paid off to go quietly into the sunset with a golden handshake equal to the GDP of a small municipality. A new cast member will get a handshake big enough to keep his mouth shut and ensure he never ever has to do a day’s work ( hopefully never gets to steal again from the public sector as well). I am happy to be wrong, but here the Mama Action train is going to be derailed — if it does not, she will be truly an exceptional politician who does not mind that her own days may get numbered by her brave political action. She will stand out like a sore thumb if she fired some of these guys.

Look at what happened to affable Nosimo Balindlela. When she bit her low lip and stomped her bare feet to fire two corrupt and incompetent MECs, she promptly got the chop herself. I know that may not be the full story about her administration and leadership but who ever gets to learn the full story in politics anyway. Quite frankly no one can explain to me why people who were named in an investigation that cost millions of our taxes were instead promoted into big jobs in the current administration. Some of them — emboldened by the new politics of our time — went to court to stop the release of that report and no one ever heard a word after that. But at least Balindlela lives to see another day. Early this year, a mayor of a town in Mpumalanga who pointed out the corruption linked to the 2010 stadium tender there in that town, was not that lucky — he is six feet cold.

It’s really the same script … but take the new cast where civil servants pay themselves millions in illicit tender deals and all that we can do is have our Scopa reprimand them lightly. A single official is yet to be charged by anybody at all R650 million later. The scripts are numerous, the author of the theatre of our day does not sleep indeed — take the curious case of Transnet — whatever the facts … someone is suspended for alleged wrongdoing, the entire machinery of government spokespersons, ministers and party hacks swing to his blind defence and cry wolf is the new tune in town … archaic conspiracy theories are taken out of the woodwork. Where is this country going? Have we so resigned ourselves to corruption that we have not stopped to consider the cancer destroying us so?

I digress … After all is said and done there are good noises coming out of Mokonyane’s office — whether it be a strong warning for taxis to stop their nonsense, or a firm warning to criminals or a warning to civil servants to stop stealing, we must commend her and hope against hope that unlike Balindlela she won’t soon be considered too big for her high heels or popular jeans and then shown the door.