Cyril Ramaphosa betrayed his promise

The president finally gave some sort of explanation of the burglary on his Phala Phala farm in 2020. His explanation of how foreign currency was stolen formed the major part of the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the ANC at the weekend.

And with his explanation, and the backing of some of his comrades, he survived an onslaught from his opponents who wanted to oust him. They failed – but that is not the end of Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala ghosts. He still needs to survive the parliamentary committee that is looking at whether his conduct was impeachable or not, as well as his own organisation’s ethics committee’s recommendations.

It is sad that SA’s president chose to take his own organisation into his confidence before owning up to the nation.

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There is no way to know how Ramaphosa’s journey as president will play out in the next month or even years, but the general consensus of all those supporting a transparent governing style know that his biggest let-down was those wasted promises that he chose to shelve in favour of staying loyal to his own party over the country he governs.

The country right now seems lightyears away from the country he inherited from Jacob Zuma in February 2018. Yes, Zuma’s South Africa had become despondent and almost totally broken – but when he took over, Ramaphosa evoked the resilience that had defined the country during the struggle for liberation.

At the time, he swore to be “guided by Nelson Mandela’s example… to use the year 2018 (Mandela’s centenary) to reinforce our commitment to ethical behaviour and leadership”. Now, four years later, his presidency hangs by a thread because he strayed from the ethical behaviour he promised.

When he decided it is best to take the NEC into his confidence on Phala Phala, he went directly against his own words on that Thursday, 16 February, 2018: “There are 57 million of us… bound by a common destiny.”

When he made the explanation to the NEC, he forgot all the things he had asked the country to ask him; to task him with when he quoted Hugh Masekela’s iconic song Thuma Mina.

The country had asked him to be everything that Zuma was not; to remember that although he was forwarded by his party to serve the country, it is to the 60 million South Africans that he is accountable.

While the president is busy explaining Phala Phala to give himself a chance for a second term, his ruling party is busy destabilising the biggest and most economically active metropolitan municipalities: Ekurhuleni and the City of Joburg.

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Instead of offering half-baked explanations for dollars stashed in his furniture, he should be providing the political stability that he promised everyone when he took over from Zuma. Then the country would not see the political joke of voting mayors out without the political numbers to install their own chosen mayors.

Maybe, instead of going into his first term plotting on how to survive two terms, he should have gone in planning on how to be different to his predecessor. Where his predecessor put his party above country, he should have done the opposite.

He would have earned the voters’ confidence by now – such that, when he came back to them with an unbelievably clumsy tale like Phala Phala, the voters would be the first to defend him as an honest president. Right now, voters feel he betrayed the promises he made to them.