Ramaphosa’s glaring leadership mishaps are a problem

Many believe President Cyril Ramaphosa is the best ANC leader compared to many of his current colleagues – and there is truth in that.

This so because everywhere you look, you struggle to find someone who could easily replace him among his fellow ANC national executive committee comrades.

They are all controversial in their various ways with many having been found with their hands in the till.

Of course, he may be the best under the circumstances, but he can never reach the levels of Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo or Albert Luthuli in terms of ANC-schooled leadership, far from it.

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Ramaphosa can only beat his immediate predecessor on all scores.

But I have a problem with his glaring leadership mishaps.

I understood his tendency to follow due processes when he has to take action, but his timidity when it comes to decision-making is disappointing.

For instance, there was nothing that obliged him to redeploy Arthur Fraser to Correctional Services, which I believe, as part of the security cluster, is a strategic portfolio in the government.

This was a man who was found by a high-level panel led by Sydney Mufamadi to have been central in the corruption that occurred at the State Security Agency, of which he was a director-general.

Under his leadership the SSA was turned into a tool for ANC factional battles and Jacob Zuma’s pocket knife.

There were many other less strategic departments that Fraser should have been sent to other than correctional services, such as sports, arts and culture, tourism and agriculture, if he could not have been fired yet.

The damage he had caused to the country by releasing a convicted man, Jacob Zuma, on medical parole was unforgettable.

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Worse still, he did so without paying due regard to the sitting president and in the process also undermined the constitutional court that jailed the former president.

He not only showed the middle finger to the highest court in the land, he completely ignored the advice of the parole board, an authority in the process.

As if this was not enough, Fraser went on to lay criminal charges against the president based on a matter that happened in 2020.

The question still lingers as to why Fraser waited for so long before he complained about the Ramaphosa farm theft. Anyway, the chickens have come home to roost for Ramaphosa, as he is the one who trusted Fraser to head such a sensitive department.

Indeed Fraser would have found another way to get at Ramaphosa, even if he was not moved to correctional services.

But he wouldn’t have been able to release someone with a history of playing hide-and-seek with our criminal justice system.

Zuma continues to play his games beyond his presidential term and would do all he could to stay out of jail.

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Zuma set such a bad example, one all his followers are trying to emulate. But none was likely to sustain it like him: to keep everybody guessing about his trial for 20 years.

Ramaphosa’s laissez-faire leadership approach is not what South Africa deserves at this time.

This country needs someone who would be decisive, and lead from the front when it comes to corruption and criminality.

His hiding behind the cloak of the ANC collective is not convincing, as Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has found.

Ramaphosa should account for his decision for having folded his arms while the state was being captured by looters facilitated by Zuma.

The state coffers were emptied by the Gupta brothers and their local associates, as a result of Ramaphosa’s silence.