ANC Women's League president Bathabile Dlamini addresses supporters, 1 April 2022, outside the Johannesburg Magistrates Court, after being sentenced. She was earlier found guilty of perjury for lying under oath during a 2017 inquiry into the social grants debacle at the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa). The court imposed a sentence of four years in prison or a R200 000 fine, with half of either of the two suspended. Picture: Michel Bega
If one needed proof that the ANC’s leadership considers itself above the law, common decency and ethics, and only responsible to the party, it didn’t come clearer than the prosecution for perjury of former minister Bathabile Dlamini.
Yesterday, she was fined R200 000 or four years’ jail for lying under oath while testifying to the Constitutional Court. Despite that, there has been no apology, nor an offer to step down from her post as chair of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL).
On the contrary, an unrepentant Dlamini said in a TV interview she would make herself available for re-election and would await the decision of the ANCWL.
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That the league would countenance such a situation provides a crystal clear sign of how it also views those difficult – for the ANC anyway – concepts of honesty and accountability.
The fact that so many senior members of the party resort to lying when in difficult circumstances – normally related to some form of corruption or incompetence– shows an organisation which has long since drifted away from the principled path trodden by its founding members and those who fought apartheid tooth and nail.
Dlamini, you dishonour the memory of Madiba and all our other heroes with your arrogance.
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