South Africans yearned for the ANC’s NEC meeting last weekend to do the right thing. The ANC failed at that puny hurdle either due to loyalty to their leader or the simple reason that they too are captured. Neither did Zuma fall on this sword. Instead he sat impassively at the meeting while his Comrades vilified him. What has not yet been found is incontrovertible evidence of Zuma’s hand in this malfeasance. 

What chance is there that the smoking gun will ever be found? 

Main picture: Transnet’s new locomotives on which the Gupta’s will receive a commission of R10m per unit

An historical analogue

I equate South Africa’s problem with that of proving that Adolf Hitler ordered the Holocaust. Hitler’s British apologist, David Irving, bases his support of Hitler’s innocence on the fact that Hitler never signed any document ordering the massacre of the Jews. He alludes to the fact – nay is proud of the fact – that despite having personally perusing a trove of letters, documents and diaries of the Third Reich, he has never detected a hint of a suspicion that Hitler is culpable.

David Irving, Holocaust denier and Hitler apologist

Even in documents of Hitler’s subordinates, are there any overt references to the slaughter of the Jews. Instead, even the Conference at Wallensee, which was the arbiter of the future fate of the Jews, only uses euphemisms on the Jewish Question as it was known. In the minutes of the meeting, the only references are to the supposed Final Solution. Without an definition of what they meant by these elusive words, it could have meant anything from constructing a gigantic pleasure resort for the Jews on the Baltic Coast to the annihilation of the Jewish Race.

In retrospect, humanity is now aware that the Final Solution meant the eradication of the Jews like some pestilence.

Zuma’s modus operandi

What is the likelihood that a document will be found bearing Zuma’s signature in which he requests that Transnet pays the Gupta family a commission of R10m per locomotive acquired by Transnet.

Highly unlikely!

Malusi Gigaba, the facilitator

What probably occurred was that Zuma whispered into Malusi Gigaba’s ear that Mr X, a Gupta associate, be appointed into a key position at Transnet. Later, if and when, malfeasance is detected, there is plausible deniability that Zuma is involved.

So far, the #GuptaLeaks emails have provided damning information about malfeasance of the highest order, yet none implicates Zuma in a direct or obviously incriminating way.

The Waterkloof landing episode showcases Zuma’s modus operandi. Zuma left no footprints. There was no direct communication in written form, no text messages, no emails and definitely no signatures. Everything was verbally agreed to. Instead what happens if the scam is exposed, is that the implicated official is dispensed with by redeploying them, in this case as ambassador to the Netherlands. Watch this space. In spite of Brian Molefe being implicated in these shenanigans, he will shortly be redeployed to another senior post in government or to a S.O.E. or, heaven forbid, to Treasury.

The Guptas using Waterkloof Airforce base as their personal airport, courtesy of JZ

 Quo Vadis

The odds are that the ANC itself will continue to frustrate South African’s desire for untarnished governance. Either through blind loyalty to the man or the organisation, or by possessing their own smallanyanas,­ – skeletons – like Bathabile Dlamini, will it not only continue to support Zuma’s continued occupation as the head of government but will it continue to subvert all attempts by civil society to bring the perpetrators to justice. With the Police Service under strict instructions not to investigate, or at least to make a perfunctory investigation, this will not be a difficult task.

What this process will do, is to shred any of the remaining moral authority that the ANC’s bears, a mantle that is now ill-fitting and misshapen.

Instead, the ANC should it cast aside in order to expose the rotting corpse inside. Only then will the ANC, and more importantly, South Africa, allow the stinking remains to be buried, unloved and unwanted.

Only then is a brighter, more prosperous South Africa possible, unfettered by this hindrance of a moribund corrupted ANC.