‘Extended State capture’ seen in SA’s herbal drugs scandal

The battle for the heart and soul of the South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party, and for its leadership, continues to heat up, with various factions and groupings aligning behind the two front runners – President Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

That the battle has been met in full is now apparent, with the ANC Youth League having in the past few days endorsed Dlamini-Zuma and the ANC’s union ally, the Congress of SA Trade Unions, Ramaphosa.

Zuma narrowly survived a recent ANC National Executive Committee meeting called to possibly ‘impeach’ and recall him from the presidency, as was done with former President Thabo Mbeki a decade ago.

Zuma loyalists hailed his survival of that vote as a ‘victory’ but it was more of a pragmatic determination by the 60-person executive committee to not create any more problems for the party, given that Zuma will, in any case, be replaced in just five months, at the national elective conference.

LAMBASTED COLLEAGUES

But it was a close-run thing and Zuma, having survived, then lambasted his ANC executive colleagues, warning them, in his increasingly apparent tendency towards authoritarianism, not to push him any further.

The angry post-No Confidence vote comments however amount to bravado more than any real warning of a crackdown. He has lost much ground and credibility with the emergence in the South African Press of the existence of thousands of emails linking him, several of his present and past ministers and executives in State enterprises with the now infamous Gupta family.

The unfolding scandal of private sector involvement in – and even, it appears, control of – top-level government and presidential decision making, apparently to this immigrant family’s economic advantage, has pushed ANC even further into crisis.

Criticising aspects of the emerging scandal’s ramifications, Ramaphosa has been at pains to be restrained and respectful, speaking increasingly of the need for the country to be properly governed and its State enterprises properly managed – and definitely not for the benefit of any one grouping, family or clutch of select individuals.

READ: Zuma endorses former wife as his replacement

In effect, he is laying out the basis for his ANC presidency bid and thereby accession to the national presidency – in essence, promising to end the era of Zuma-esque corruption and influence peddling in high places.

Despite best efforts by the Zuma administration to put a lid on its mounting problems, the exposure of the emails and other facts continue to put the party on the back foot with the public outcry against so-called State capture gaining strength with each round of new, almost daily, revelations.

Meanwhile, the Nation has become aware of what might be a major stumbling block – if not the death knell – for Dlamini-Zuma’s presidential bid.

In what may well be an indication that ‘State capture’ has mutated beyond the influence of a single immigrant family and widened to include other players, the Department of Health, and Dlamini-Zuma, have declined to answer 24 questions put to them by the Nation regarding the sudden emergence of a Chinese herbal medicine company as key in the development of commercial drugs from South Africa’s trove of African traditional medicines.

The questions were put by the Nation more than a week ago to all parties involved – from the minister down through the Director-General of Health and various other officials.

The Nation approached the ANC for the contacts of Dlamini-Zuma, who holds no official position in the party, and was provided with the email address of her daughter, which was used to convey the questions. So far, there has been no reply. The questions have, however, been received by the DoH.

The questions around Dlamini-Zuma’s still-unclear role in what may be a form of ‘extended State capture’ arise from her participation at the opening in mid-November of Chinese firm Beijing Tong Ren Tang Africa’s head office and major outlet in South Africa. Besides speaking to journalists, she issued several tweets related to her presence at the event and her pleasure at the company being on SA’s shores.

The company, which the Nation is informed is government-owned, was only registered in September and yet had shelves filled with many products at its official opening. It apparently has its eyes firmly fixed on not only South Africa, where it has already opened five major outlets in the largest urban centres, but on the rest of Africa.

As one industry player put it: “This has all the hallmarks of the Zuma administration handing our African traditional medicines’ future development and patenting (presumably by this foreign company) over to the Chinese – but at what cost? No-one knows, and those who do are not saying.”

Among several related questions about this company included how its products could be so rapidly registered with the Medicines Control Council –if, indeed, they have been registered at all – when so many other products have been waiting in line, some for years.

The DoH was asked if Beijing Tong Ren Tang Africa received special treatment, as it is alleged, with the need for registration waived, fast-tracked or simply ‘adopted’ from another company, SA Chinese Medicine (Pty) Ltd. The latter was in the spotlight when, in 2013, its South African offices were raided by police, DoH and tax officers on allegations of drug dealing, with thousands of doses of unregistered Chinese medicines discovered.

At the opening, Beijing Tong Ren Tang group general manager, Ms Yong Lingding, was reported as saying her company had ‘acquired’ a local Chinese medicine company. The DoH was asked about what it knew of any formal or informal connections between SA Chinese Medicine and the now ‘officially’ acknowledged Beijing Tong Ren Tang Africa, as the two companies – apparently not co-incidentally – reportedly have the same postal address.

Also unclear was in what capacity Dlamini-Zuma spoke at the function as she then had no official position within the SA government. The caption on the video of the event and her interview suggests she was acting as head of the Africa Union Commission.

While Ms Dlamini-Zuma spoke of the benefits of this company bringing its healing herbs into South Africa and Africa, it was not clear in context what she meant, and in which capacity she was speaking, when referring to its role in ‘helping’ in the development (and patenting) of medicines derived from African traditional medicines, as used in South Africa for millennia.

The significance of her statement is, perhaps, clearer when it is understood that a Bill before Parliament aims to regularise South Africa’s indigenous knowledge systems.

Hidden in the complex legal language of the Bill are key clauses, since objected to by significant role-players, that allow any recognisable cultural grouping to lay claim to its own indigenous knowledge system – but that this right has, in one draft at least, a 12-month expiry date.

READ: Anti-Zuma protests in South Africa as economic woes mount

After the period envisaged by the Bill, and in the absence of a specific claim by a given group, the government would then, by forfeit, ‘own’ those indigenous knowledge systems and all their components.

Critics insist that, rather than protecting indigenous knowledge rights, this was a sly move by the Zuma administration to, in effect, claim for the government’s own benefit – and, of course, of those whom they prefer – the potentially vast riches to be gained through the commercial development, under patent, of a whole new body of major healing medicines still largely unknown to the outside world.

All this to be done under the guise of protecting indigenous knowledge systems and in terms of international agreements to that end.

Many of South Africa’s estimated 220,000 traditional healers are understood to have been outraged at this move and their opposition to the indigenous knowledge systems Bill, voiced through various representative bodies, along with similar resistance from some of the country’s recognised traditional leaders, has slowed down the legislative process while relevant committees work through the complex issues involved.

VERY ABRUPTLY

Whatever has happened that has allowed a new player to so abruptly enter into South Africa’s (and thence into Africa’s) complementary medicines sector, and whether the processes followed have all been by the book, must remain under question until such time as the DoH comes clean.

Potentially, that may only happen if and when, as was required by the former Public Protector in her report on ‘State capture’, a commission of inquiry is called – and only if that commission has a wide enough scope to cover ‘extended State capture’.

President Zuma wants the Public Protector’s State Capture report – along with its requirement that he appoint a commission with a judge provided by others than himself – reviewed. While he has little hope of success, this legal process will certainly stop any commission of inquiry into ‘State capture’ being implemented any time soon.

DELAYING TACTICS

Despite employing his standard delaying tactics as previously used in his various legal wrangles, Zuma cannot avoid an eventual outcome, however, if only because his term as ANC president runs out in December – hence his adamant determination to have his ex-wife succeed him.

The whole story is given added spice by the revelation this week that the new Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba resorted to his ministerial prerogative while Minister of Home Affairs to invoke ‘extraordinary circumstances’ in order to give the Gupta family South African citizenship.

Gigaba, who replaced Pravin Gordhan in Zuma’s much-criticised ‘midnight reshuffle’ of his Cabinet in late March, is yet to explain what exactly are the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ which allowed him to grant citizenship to this family whose businesses have, apparently, benefited to the tune of many millions of dollars through tenders and other close business relationships with the Zuma administration. The question becomes all the more pointed given that the Guptas had previously applied, through normal channels, for citizenship and had been denied.