The state capture practitioners of the 2010s never died. They merely retreated. Now, they are regrouping, organising in different political formations, and they are coming back.
In December 2015 the president of SA, Jacob Zuma, fired his finance minister and installed a nonentity called Des van Rooyen in the most important job in Cabinet.
The next day Van Rooyen arrived at National Treasury with two men, Ian Whitley and Mohamed Bobat. He claimed they were his special adviser and chief of staff, respectively.
In the meeting it became clear that Van Rooyen did not know the two men from a bar of soap.
As they sat down, Van Rooyen was asked by finance director-general Lungisa Fuzile to formally introduce the two fellows to the treasury team.
Dondo Mogajane, who was at the time deputy DG of public finance, testified at the Zondo Commission how Van Rooyen fumbled his introduction of the two. First, van Rooyen pointed at Bobat: “This is uh uh umm…”
He couldn’t remember the guy’s name. Bobat quickly introduced himself as “Mohamed”.
Van Rooyen tried to rectify the mistake: “We call him Mo. He is my chief of staff.”
The whole idea that Van Rooyen was anything but a puppet of the Gupta family was unravelling fast, though.
The previous evening Fuzile had received a call from Enoch Godongwana, the current finance minister and at the time the ANC chief of economic transformation, warning Fuzile that anarchy was at the gates of National Treasury.
He told him that he would now have a “Gupta minister” who would arrive at treasury with two advisers chosen for him by the family.
That tip was proving true in front of Fuzile and Mogajane.
Bobat brazenly told Van Rooyen that he was not his chief of staff. He was, he said, his adviser.
Van Rooyen sat there. All he needed to do was nod and reply to Bobat: “Ja, baas.”
Because that was the truth of the situation. Bobat, through the Guptas, was the boss. Van Rooyen was a mere tool of the notorious family that was in a criminal partnership with Zuma.
This past week we learnt that Van Rooyen is at the top of the candidates’ list put forward by Zuma’s violence-spouting MK Party to head to parliament after the May 29 elections.
Zuma and Van Rooyen are accompanied by Roy Moodley, who allegedly paid the former president a R64,000 monthly salary as a ‘security guard’ before and during his presidency, and the husband of disgraced and impeached former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
A look at the emerging MK Party membership shows that the spine of this organisation is a resuscitation of the state capture ANC of Jacob Zuma.
Van Rooyen was a big-wig in the MK Military Veterans Association, which was funded by the Guptas and supported by Zuma even when he knew that many of its claimed members were babies when the real MK, the ANC military wing, was unbanned in 1990.
The next step in the evolution of this process is a tie-up between MK Party, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, Ace Magashule’s no-name-brand party which is significant in the Free State, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), Andile Mngxitama’s Black First Land First, and a gaggle of other allegedly Left-leaning political entrepreneurs.
The EFF has already done a wonderful job of adopting and ingesting much of the effluent of the ANC.
Busisiwe Mkhwebane jumped on board immediately after being impeached as public protector.
Mzwanele Manyi, who still functions as a spokesman for Jacob Zuma, signed up to the party and jumped the queue to become one of its MPs.
Carl Niehaus, also a former MKMVA and ANC spokesman and bigwig, dumped his newly-formed party last year and signed up with Malema’s red berets.
The ANC names that are missing from this list are those of the likes of Tony Yengeni, Lindiwe Sisulu, and a few others. I have no doubt that they will soon make the jump publicly.
So, over the past ten years, the ANC has been splitting over something other than ideology. It has been splitting over criminality.
The so-called Radical Economic Transformation (RET) crowd spouts radical politics but is deeply mired in state capture, crime, corruption, and violence, as we saw in July 2021. None of them believes in the Constitution.
All of them believe in chaos. They believe that they are entitled to be at the top and to be looting from the fiscus. They are criminals.
This emerging axis of criminality is destabilising the ANC from within (many are still in the ANC national executive committee and funnel messages to their RET, MKP, and EFF comrades) while doing the same in communities, especially in KwaZulu-Natal.
The ANC is not just facing these parties at the ballot box. It is battling with an enemy deeply embedded within its body.
It’s actually a miracle that its leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the organisation itself have managed to survive since ejecting Zuma in 2017.
State capture crew beating the door down to get back in
Columnist
Image: Veli Nhlapo
The state capture practitioners of the 2010s never died. They merely retreated. Now, they are regrouping, organising in different political formations, and they are coming back.
In December 2015 the president of SA, Jacob Zuma, fired his finance minister and installed a nonentity called Des van Rooyen in the most important job in Cabinet.
The next day Van Rooyen arrived at National Treasury with two men, Ian Whitley and Mohamed Bobat. He claimed they were his special adviser and chief of staff, respectively.
In the meeting it became clear that Van Rooyen did not know the two men from a bar of soap.
As they sat down, Van Rooyen was asked by finance director-general Lungisa Fuzile to formally introduce the two fellows to the treasury team.
Dondo Mogajane, who was at the time deputy DG of public finance, testified at the Zondo Commission how Van Rooyen fumbled his introduction of the two. First, van Rooyen pointed at Bobat: “This is uh uh umm…”
He couldn’t remember the guy’s name. Bobat quickly introduced himself as “Mohamed”.
Van Rooyen tried to rectify the mistake: “We call him Mo. He is my chief of staff.”
The whole idea that Van Rooyen was anything but a puppet of the Gupta family was unravelling fast, though.
The previous evening Fuzile had received a call from Enoch Godongwana, the current finance minister and at the time the ANC chief of economic transformation, warning Fuzile that anarchy was at the gates of National Treasury.
He told him that he would now have a “Gupta minister” who would arrive at treasury with two advisers chosen for him by the family.
That tip was proving true in front of Fuzile and Mogajane.
Bobat brazenly told Van Rooyen that he was not his chief of staff. He was, he said, his adviser.
Van Rooyen sat there. All he needed to do was nod and reply to Bobat: “Ja, baas.”
Because that was the truth of the situation. Bobat, through the Guptas, was the boss. Van Rooyen was a mere tool of the notorious family that was in a criminal partnership with Zuma.
This past week we learnt that Van Rooyen is at the top of the candidates’ list put forward by Zuma’s violence-spouting MK Party to head to parliament after the May 29 elections.
Zuma and Van Rooyen are accompanied by Roy Moodley, who allegedly paid the former president a R64,000 monthly salary as a ‘security guard’ before and during his presidency, and the husband of disgraced and impeached former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
A look at the emerging MK Party membership shows that the spine of this organisation is a resuscitation of the state capture ANC of Jacob Zuma.
Van Rooyen was a big-wig in the MK Military Veterans Association, which was funded by the Guptas and supported by Zuma even when he knew that many of its claimed members were babies when the real MK, the ANC military wing, was unbanned in 1990.
The next step in the evolution of this process is a tie-up between MK Party, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, Ace Magashule’s no-name-brand party which is significant in the Free State, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), Andile Mngxitama’s Black First Land First, and a gaggle of other allegedly Left-leaning political entrepreneurs.
The EFF has already done a wonderful job of adopting and ingesting much of the effluent of the ANC.
Busisiwe Mkhwebane jumped on board immediately after being impeached as public protector.
Mzwanele Manyi, who still functions as a spokesman for Jacob Zuma, signed up to the party and jumped the queue to become one of its MPs.
Carl Niehaus, also a former MKMVA and ANC spokesman and bigwig, dumped his newly-formed party last year and signed up with Malema’s red berets.
The ANC names that are missing from this list are those of the likes of Tony Yengeni, Lindiwe Sisulu, and a few others. I have no doubt that they will soon make the jump publicly.
So, over the past ten years, the ANC has been splitting over something other than ideology. It has been splitting over criminality.
The so-called Radical Economic Transformation (RET) crowd spouts radical politics but is deeply mired in state capture, crime, corruption, and violence, as we saw in July 2021. None of them believes in the Constitution.
All of them believe in chaos. They believe that they are entitled to be at the top and to be looting from the fiscus. They are criminals.
This emerging axis of criminality is destabilising the ANC from within (many are still in the ANC national executive committee and funnel messages to their RET, MKP, and EFF comrades) while doing the same in communities, especially in KwaZulu-Natal.
The ANC is not just facing these parties at the ballot box. It is battling with an enemy deeply embedded within its body.
It’s actually a miracle that its leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the organisation itself have managed to survive since ejecting Zuma in 2017.
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