Ramaphosa’s anniversary a ‘catastrophic’ four years as ANC president

Happy anniversary, Mr President! Yes, in just a week you’ll be celebrating that propitious day in December 2017. The day you assumed office as the 14th ANC president.

Of course, your four years as president of the republic is reached only in February next year. But we all know upon which of these two offices you place the highest value.

At this four-year milestone, if you were an American president, the situation would have been comfortably predictable.

You’d either have been dumped by the electorate for a new, improved model, or you’d be contemplating how best to cement in your second term the legacy you laid down in your first.

But for Ramaphosa, it’s more complicated. As he said this week, it’s been a “catastrophic” year – what with Covid chaos and a shrinking economy. Nevertheless, he remains of good cheer.

“Upstanding and ready for the next fight,” as he said, pluckily.

“Upstanding” is an interesting choice in words, since it has both a literal and philosophical dimension.

While few would question his personal morality – as a politician who has risen to the top of a particularly malodorous dungheap – he’s probably as good as the ANC gene pool goes; the flaws lie in his execution.

Ramaphosa may indeed be physically vertical but in every other way he’s been slip-sliding, like a jelly in an earthquake, in every direction. It’s difficult to think of a single promise that he’s delivered upon in all of these four years.

It is perhaps in the platitudinous mouthings on corruption and lawlessness that Ramaphosa failings are most worrying.

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Unless he straightens his spine – and soon – the whole country will be crushed by a culture of criminal impunity that’s been growing for decades and has become more brazen in the wake of the July uprising in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

Hence the plight of poor old Shamila Batohi, for whom December is also supposedly a time for celebration.

On this day, three years and a fortnight ago, the then highly regarded Batohi was appointed by Uncle Cyril as head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Her brief from Ramaphosa was stirring.

Quoting from a Constitutional Court judgment, he said: “The rule of law dictates that the office of the NDPP be cleansed of all the ills that have plagued it for the past few years. With a malleable, corrupt or dysfunctional prosecuting authority, many criminals – especially those holding positions of influence – will rarely, if ever, answer for their criminal deeds.”

Batohi has obviously so far failed at the task and is currently taking a public drubbing, with commentators and editors calling for her head.

DA shadow minister of justice Glynnis Breytenbach – a former NPA prosecutor herself – is one person who one might expect to join the baying mot. She remains surprisingly supportive.

Breytenbach says Batohi “faces a task of great enormity”, while lacking the “tools to do the job” and being faced with the “now obvious reality of a lack of political support”.

“If you want to assess ANC commitment,” she tells me, “look at the slashed budgets.”

The figures are indeed telling. In May, the NPA had R422 million cut from its budget of R4.9 billion. The NPA’s Investigating Directorate has a budget of a miserable R107 million. No wonder its head, Hermione Cronje, has resigned.

Whatever her instinctual sympathies for Batohi’s plight, Breytenbach hit the nail on the head during the parliamentary justice committee’s grilling of Batohi this week.

“It’s not frankly good enough to keep telling [South Africans] that we must be patient,” said Breytenbach.

“We need to see prosecutions happening. We need to see people going to jail. It’s as simple as that.”

You heard that, Mr President?

• This is the final column for 2021. It will resume in the new year.