He was laughing, he told me recently, because
otherwise he would cry. A member of the government,
his sense of the chaotic disorganisation that is the
defining feature of so many national departments is
driving him to hysteria.
And it starts at the top. The presidency appears to be
in a mess.
The failure to comply with the law and to make a
timely disclosure of his outside financial interests
is symptomatic of this institutional malaise; it
exposed the lack of capacity and strategic wit within
his office. Probity is Jacob Zuma's Achilles heel. You
could be forgiven for thinking that the newly elected
president would have instructed his office last May to
ensure that he would be punctilious in meeting his
legal obligations after his inauguration.
Instead, the presidency missed its legal deadline by
more than eight months. It took more than a week to
respond to a simple question from the press: has the
president disclosed or not? And then, rather than an
answer from the secretary for Cabinet or the legal
adviser to the president, Zuma's personal lawyer,
Michael Hulley, issued a classically elliptical, not
to say obscurantist, response which sought to have its
cake and eat it: on the one hand, the president does
not have any real outside financial interests, such as
directorships or shareholdings; on the other, the
disclosure needed several months of "engagement" with
the Cabinet office.
Why was Hulley involved at all? The president's
declaration is made as the office-bearer and so,
therefore, it should be the presidential legal adviser
who handles the matter, not the attorney who made a
name for himself representing Zuma through his long
and tortuous journey though the criminal justice
process.
And, who is paying his fees -- Zuma himself, or the
taxpayer? If Zuma chooses to use his private attorney
to perform a presidential function rather than the
person employed to do so, then he should pay the bill
himself.
To some, these will seem like trifling concerns. What
matters, they say, is "service delivery" -- that
ghastly, over-used expression that has become almost
completely meaningless in its banality. But, as Cosatu
secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi pointed out in his
superb and timely op-ed article a month ago in the
Sunday Independent, it is the conflict of private
financial interests that undermines the public
interest.
Vavi's call for a lifestyle audit was a welcome
contribution to the public debate. It came in a piece
that was bristling with common sense and contained as
pithy an analysis of the range of governance problems
that now beset the political establishment as any I
have seen. It is rare for Kader Asmal and Vavi to
agree on anything, but they have both identified the
issue that now needs urgent attention: reform of the
array of anti-corruption mechanisms introduced during
the 1990s, many of which stem from Asmal's far-sighted
leadership of the special ethics committee during the
first democratic Parliament that created the system of
financial disclosures (although see below too).
A part of the financial disclosure that both MPs and
members of the executive make is private. That was for
a particular reason: in the mid-1990s, with
Inkathagate and other fifth-column perils still fresh
in the mind, there was concern about making public
anything that might endanger the security of public
figures, such as their private property or their
spouses.
Now a greater public interest trumps this anachronism
-- to dig deeper towards the causes of corrupt
behaviour that are curdling the constitutional fabric
of South Africa's democratic governance.
Last month and this, two pieces of critical
legislation -- the Protected Disclosures Act that
provides protection to whistle-blowers and the
Promotion of Access to Information Act which gives
effect to the constitutional right to access
information -- "celebrated" their 10-year mark. But,
as the review commissioned by the Open Democracy
Advice Centre showed two weeks ago, while there have
been victories for individual whistle-blowers and some
communities seeking information to enable them to hold
government to account, there is a huge mountain still
to climb.
If you ask for information from government you are
still more likely to be ignored than answered. If you
are a whistle-blower, you may well be either
assassinated or blacklisted from government
employment.
Things have to change. And Zuma has to lead by
example, to set the highest standard from the top.
Instead of spending his time listening in to calls to
his beloved hotline -- a massive gimmick -- he should
take some concrete steps to strengthen and extend the
existing system.
First, the system of financial disclosure needs to be
reformed so that more is disclosed by a greater number
of public office-bearers. Those who fail to disclose
should be disciplined. And then open a radical debate
on whether public office-bearers should be entitled to
second jobs and outside interests at all-- the nettle
that Asmal declined to grasp back in 1995.
Second, whistle-blowers should receive a presidential
award for bravery and public-spirited conduct. Zuma
can help shift attitudes away from a culture that, in
the words of one government official, treats
"whistle-blowers as impimpis who must be killed".
Third, section 32 of the Constitution must be a
priority, not a luxury: government departments must
comply with both the spirit and letter of the law and
proactively disclose as much information as possible.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Fourth, Zuma must step in where the ANC treasurer,
Mathews Phosa, apparently fears to tread despite his
promises upon taking his position on the
organisation's national executive committee, and
introduce a Bill to open up to public scrutiny the
private funding of political parties -- the root of so
much of the grand corruption since 1994.
Otherwise, yes, Cosatu and civil society must conduct
lifestyle audits. If the parliamentary system of
oversight is obstructed or dysfunctional, or stuck in
a rut, an extra-parliamentary one should be mobilised.
An open democracy charter will be an important
initiative to stimulate progress. We need to impose a
new standard of public integrity. And fast.
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