New South African leader fails the initial ethics test

On May 9, 2009, South Africans installed Jacob Zuma as their fourth post-apartheid president.

Scattered antagonists were revolted by his unorthodox rise to the pinnacle of power. According to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Zuma’s presidency is a national disgrace. He did not attend the inauguration ceremonies in protest.

Zuma’s diehard political enemies, principally the white-dominated official opposition party of the Democratic Alliance (DA), are convinced that Zuma’s election was an unfortunate aberration.

They have pledged to keep the spotlight trained on his every move until he stumbles. Any signs of wobbling will trigger massive noise from them, enough of it to render Zuma’s rule truly uncomfortable.

Most South Africans, however, wished the new president well. They seemed to grasp the awesome adversity he faced.

Despite the tarnished image of its leader, the new administration must deliver costly services to the country’s poor in the midst of a crippling economic slowdown.

During the 2009 election campaign, the DA coded anti-Zuma sentiments in three words: corruption, incompetence and immorality. It is against these criteria that the party would judge Zuma’s leadership.

As Zuma’s victory became increasingly inevitable, the DA seemed to resign itself to the adage that a leopard does not lose its spots.

Zuma would win but the frailties in his character would find a way to assert themselves and cripple his presidency. Alarmingly, for the msholozi, this vision of the Opposition would soon come close to affirmation.

Ten days into Zuma’s presidency, a scandalous story exploded that S’bu Ndebele, Zuma’s new minister of transport, had a week earlier accepted lavish “thank you” gifts from an organisation of Black road contractors that he had dutifully assisted as the premier of Kwazulu-Natal.

Among Ndebele’s elaborate gifts was a luxury S500 Mercedes Benz sedan valued at a whopping nine million shillings.

Initially Ndebele insisted that, despite public protest, he would keep the car as he saw no conflict of interests. After all, he was no longer a Kwazulu-Natal official; he had moved on to national status.

Conflict of interest

But in addition to public outcry, a marriage of convenience had emerged between Cosatu, the South African Communist Party, (which had joined hands with the African National Congress to buoy Zuma to the presidency) and the DA. This group insisted that Ndebele return the car to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest.

Finding himself in the eye of a political storm, Ndebele chose to seek guidance from the presidency. He was duly advised to keep the car, provided he declared the gift to parliament. But, the advice continued, the ultimate decision was his.

In the end, Ndebele gave the sedan back, not because he considered it inappropriate to keep it, but because keeping it had simply become a political nuisance.

Put another way, Ndebele returned the car because he had been caught. Had the gift not become a political liability of national scale, he would have kept it with a free conscience. Here lies the problem.

As repeatedly noted, a gift that size would have been inappropriate even if Ndebele had already retired from public life. After all, as the premier of Kwazulu-Natal he had just done his job by helping the Black road builders and was paid adequately for it.

Yet, to the bitter end in the 2009 debacle, Ndebele did not express remorse; he never saw the enduring dangers of accepting such gifts. More importantly, President Jacob Zuma did not take advantage of Ndebele’s tribulations as an opportunity to set the correct tone of his presidency regarding corruption.

Zuma came to power needing desperately to illustrate commitment to the notion of zero-tolerance for corruption. His response to the Ndebele’s fiasco fell far short of that aspiration.

In addition to having to censure erring senior officials occasionally, Zuma needs to cultivate a culture of clean public service as an end in itself.

It may be a good thing that the Ndebele imbroglio occurred so early in his term to wake him up to the ethical perversion he is up against.