Open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa
Motion after motion of no confidence that came before Parliament against Mr Zuma, you shot it down choosing Mr Zuma over South Africa at least eight times.
Mr President,
At the outset let me categorically state that I hold your office in high regard and respect you as our Head of State and Government. Accordingly, it is out of this respect that I write you this letter.
Utterances attributed to you, stating that in Davos you spoke of “nine wasted years” under Mr Zuma have taken me aback, as they are said with a very opportunistic view to distance yourself from the grave realities of those years, particularly for the poor majority, as we saw everything from grand-scale corruption to the collapse of the economy to state capture. All this time, Sir, you were a part of the system.
You served in the Zuma ANC NEC. Not a word came from you. Instead, those who challenged Mr Zuma, namely Julius Malema and co, were expelled from the ANC under the auspices of the Disciplinary Processes that you chaired.
When Mr Kgalema Motlanthe launched his campaign against Mr Zuma for the ANC presidency, you were quick to join the Zuma group, which resulted in you becoming the Deputy President of both the ANC and South Africa.
You, Sir, became the right-hand man of Mr Zuma and Leader of Government Business in our Parliament.
It therefore boggles the mind that you can speak of “nine wasted years” when for all intents and purposes, you were in the belly of the beast which was the Zuma administration.
In all those years, not once did we ever hear even a squeak from you, until it became politically and ambitiously expedient for you, as you launched your own campaign for the ANC Presidency.
Motion after motion of no confidence that came before Parliament against Mr Zuma, you shot down, choosing Mr Zuma over South Africa at least eight times.
Mr President, the office you occupy represents the best of this country both you and I love,and out of it we expect honesty and integrity. That honesty and integrity is what is required of you when you speak of “nine wasted years”– it was in those years that you and the ANC aided and abetted Zuma.
Whenever the seriousness of the implications of Zuma’s shortcomings was raised, you were on the side that spoke of “collective responsibility”; you cannot shirk that truth now because it is electorally compromising.
Mr President, the truth is that during those “nine wasted years” you stood on the side of the one wasting South Africa away, not on the side of the victims of the waste: the people.
The pain inflicted on the body politic of our country, and our economy during the “nine wasted years” cannot be quantified, and it gained traction on a daily basis, because those who were in positions to rein in the Waster-In-Chief kept quiet, for their own political survival.
Mr President, in the year you seek election into office by millions of South Africans, remember that they too will judge you harshly for your complacency and for merely standing by as a spectator, for nine years, when billions of hard-earned South African Rand were siphoned, laundered and looted from the public’s coffers.
Mr President, if you are to speak of “nine wasted years”, please be bold in your convictions about leadership, and own your complicity in the waste you speak of.
During those years, you stood by – for all nine of them. Now is the time for South Africa to see if you have what it takes to stay on for a further nine.
Yours in politics.
