Before Wednesday, very few South Africans knew of a guy named Paul Maree.
And even after his name popped up in a sensational public protector report, it was his famous mother who grabbed the headlines.
According to his mother – and one has no reason to doubt this – Maree is a very nice, caring gentleman, passionate about education, especially of pupils from disadvantaged communities.
In fact it was his zeal and enthusiasm that, in 2014, drove him to ask his mother for a little bit of help with a matric examinations preparation workshop project he was running, free of charge, for disadvantaged schools in the township of Khayelitsha.
Mama Helen Zille was happy to be of assistance.
“I thought it would be a pity if they did not go ahead, particularly for the learners. I mentioned this to the director-general of the province at my normal weekly meeting where I raise a range of public queries I have received,” she said this week.
“The DG reminded me that the Western Cape education department had acquired tablets precisely for this kind of usage, in a cabinet mandated programme, and that they were due to be delivered at the beginning of the fourth term.
“I asked whether they were potentially available for use during the holidays for the free matric mathematics revision, which would be in everyone’s interests, especially the learners.
“On inquiring, the DG established that 150 had already arrived and would be available through the Western Cape education department.”
The tablets were indeed eventually made available.
Mom, son and all who worked with them were happy they could help the poor kids.
Oh, and all of the tablets were duly returned at the end of the holiday.
As Zille put it this week: “Everyone benefited.
“There was no cost involved, no conflict of interest involved and the feedback was very good.”
But when Cameron Dugmore, an ANC member of the Western Cape provincial legislature, got wind of what happened, he smelt a rat.
In a complaint to the public protector, Dugmore alleged that Zille came through for her son, advancing his business interests, by using tablets that were procured through the Western Cape provincial education department, the province of which the former DA national leader is the premier.
Releasing the outcomes of her investigation this week, public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane said she could not prove that Maree advanced any business interest.
Mkhwebane, though, felt “the premier’s involvement in the process that has resulted in securing access to the tablets in question by her son‚ and in the acquiring of the son’s company’s services and resources‚ has exposed her to the risk of a conflict between her official responsibilities as a first citizen of the province and private interests which involved her son.
“This has consequently resulted in the violation of her constitutional obligation to avoid an exposure to the aforesaid.”
Mkhwebane has ordered that the speaker of the Western Cape legislature “within 30 working days from the date of the report … take appropriate action to hold the premier accountable”.
Zille is incensed.
She’s hopping mad.
“The public protector has, once again, reflected her severely limited understanding of the constitution and the law,” she says.
“Apart from the legal errors in the report, part of the remedial action proposed is also unlawful. This is another reason why I will take the report on a full review.”
To take a public protector report on review is of course a right anyone implicated has. Ditto Zille!
Coming, as the report does, from a public protector who hasn’t covered herself in glory half the time this year, it must hurt Zille deeply.
And the report is released alongside a damning one against former minister Fikile Mbalula, whose R700,000 holiday was bankrolled by alleged crooks who did business with his department.
I, too, wouldn’t want to be lumped together with such a man.
Zille may well have been motivated, in what she did, by the care she has for the children who need help, difficult as it may be to accept that from someone who once called the very children “refugees”.
Yes, on the basis of evidence currently available, there may have been no proof that Zille’s son benefited financially.
But does the absence of financial gain necessarily mean that there’s no gain at all?
Hasn’t Maree now “earned” himself a reputation as a do-gooder among the people of Khayelitsha, a model citizen who “deserves” more respect than other sons whose parents aren’t premiers who can press buttons and have their social responsibility programmes assisted?
The Khayelitsha matric class of 2014 should not have been at the mercy of one Paul Maree in the first place – if the Zilles and Mbalulas of this world were doing their jobs.
All our children deserve quality education, not handouts from children of politicians, however well meant.
Politicians would do well spending their time on things that really matter and not on court challenges arising out of dented egos.