The ANC professes zero tolerance for corruption but this appears to be more in word than in deed. Action is indeed taken against corrupt government officials in the lower echelons of the public service but hardly any of the persons involved have faced criminal charges. The latest case is the appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the permanent Chief Operations Officer of the South African Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC). This has  been endorsed by the Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, in utter disregard of the Public Protector’s finding that Motsoeneng had lied about his academic qualifications and was unfit to hold such a senior position. Further, he had irregularly increased his own salary from R1.5 million to R2.4 million and he had sacked senior staff members who were unhappy with his tenure. A second case is the appointment of Tina Joemat Petterson as Minister of Energy. This, after her stint  as Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries,  in which the Public Protector found that she had irregularly granted a tender for R800 million to Sekunjalo Investments. The company was deemed to be totally unqualified to monitor and protect the country’s fishing resources. This had resulted in the tender subsequently being cancelled with coastal patrol vessels lying at anchor for months on end, unable to perform their very important duties.  She had further been found guilty of irregularly spending over R150000 on air fares for two of her children and an au pair to Sweden. Despite the Public Protector’s recommendations, no action was taken against Joemat-Petterson. Now she holds office over the running of state owned electricity supplier, Eskom, which everyone knows is in a critical state. It seems that the principle of zero tolerance for corruption does not apply to cases of blatant corruption in the upper echelons of the party.

How the ANC can argue that it does not tolerate corruption is impossible to accept. In the recent elections President Jacob Zuma  expressed disdain for “clever blacks”  who had the temerity to criticise the ANC. It seems that he is happier with the mass of the uneducated, suffering as a result of South Africa’s rotten educational system, who will happily vote for the ANC, not understanding the legal technicalities involved in large scale corruption.

In every bourgeois party one finds two classes of individuals. The small core, usually in the leadership, who are passionate about the need to uphold and defend the capitalist system and then there are those who have only entered politics as a career to finance their own personal interests.  This latter group is most prone to manifest corruption though the upper echelons are not immune to this disease either.  The ANC is still young in experience controlling  a bourgeois state and it lives by the false glory of having led the so-called anti-apartheid struggle. This has legitimised the corrupt elements in its ranks. But the struggle was far more than one against apartheid and it should properly be seen as one against oppression and exploitation of the vast majority. Today the masses experience little freedom from their exploitation and the ANC boast is increasingly being seen as a hollow one.

ANC ideologues are torn between defending a bourgeois state and promoting a pre-socialist state. But they sold out in the negotiated settlement for the sake of having all their political prisoners released and their exiles  given immunity from prosecution. This, besides the fruits that they could expect to enjoy in the position of national leadership. After all, Mandela was a millionaire before he left prison. It is in this climate of indecision on the role that they should play that the opportunists have gained the upper hand in the party and we now have  a string of criminal corruption cases which the ANC and its Alliance members attempt to legitimise.  Recently, Blade Nzimande, Secretary of the South African Communist Party and Minister of Higher Education disgustingly attempted to defend Agriculture Minister,  Senzeni Zokwana for grossly underpaying a farm labourer R800 per month, (about R26 per day), which is less than a quarter of the legally prescribed minimum wage. Now, Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Thandi Modise, is accused of neglecting a farm she owns at which hundreds of animals have died due to neglect and her employees at the farm cry of not being paid  their promised R50 a day wage at all. All that the ANC can do is to attempt to smother these incidents with left sounding rhetoric.  Expelled Youth League chairperson and head of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius  Malema leads the brigade.