Ramaphosa’s smallanyana Phala Phala skeleton just won’t go away:
One precarious day almost exactly a year ago, we were expecting Cyril Ramaphosa to resign over the Phala Phala scandal at any moment.
The president held on and routed his foes in the ANC at the December 2022 elective conference, but investigations into the case have continued, bringing to light new information about the burglary and its subsequent cover-up.
Phala Phala has become a smallanyana skeleton that will probably hang around to haunt Ramaphosa in the 2024 elections and beyond.
The scandal has returned with a vengeance as a focus of media attention over the past month.
In my online database of 129 top daily news articles from IOL, News24 and TimesLive for November, the name of the president’s farm appeared 69 times. Out of the 15 words showing the strongest association with “Ramaphosa” in November’s news, only three were not directly related to Phala Phala, and two of those were the title “president” and the name “Cyril”.
The word most strongly associated with Ramaphosa’s name in November’s news was “cleared”, referring to the fact that then-acting public protector Kholeka Gcaleka declared the president innocent of wrongdoing concerning Phala Phala in June.
Instead, she “nailed his presidential protectors”, in Karyn Maughan and Jan Gerber’s words, finding that Presidential Protection Services head Wally Rhoode carried out an “improper” off-the-books investigation into the theft.
Both the words “presidential” and “protector” were closely associated with the president in November’s news, the former because of references to the Presidential Protection Services and the latter because of mentions of the public protector who cleared Ramaphosa.
The African Transformation Movement (ATM) is challenging the public protector’s ruling in court. Statements filed in the court challenge in November showed that Rhoode ate a meal with the theft suspects and interviewed them but did not charge them.
They also revealed that Rhoode accompanied Ramaphosa’s adviser, Bejani Chauke, to Windhoek for a secret meeting with Namibia’s President Hage Geingob 10 days after the chief suspect, Imanuwela David, was arrested in that country in June 2020. But Chauke maintains that the meeting was not related to Phala Phala at all.
Ntaba Nyoni Estate, the name of Ramaphosa’s business that received $ 580 000 for the sale of “sub-standard” Phala Phala buffaloes from Sudanese businessman Hazim Mustafa, was strongly associated with Ramaphosa’s name. This is because, in August, the South African Reserve Bank announced that they found that the money was a deposit, and so “there was no legal obligation on Ramaphosa or Ntaba Nyoni to have declared the foreign currency under exchange control regulations because that transaction was not ‘perfected”’.
In November, the Reserve Bank’s full report came into the public domain, revealing, among other things, that the bank accepted Ramaphosa’s description of the transaction but found inconsistencies in Mustafa’s story about it.
A last reason Phala Phala came back into the public eye in November was the arrest of the three suspects in the theft of the money from the farm: Namibian-born David, domestic worker Froliana Joseph and her brother Ndilinasho Joseph. From their case, we have learned that Froliana has a newborn baby and that, according to the state, David first broke into the wrong farm before stealing the money from Phala Phala. As the case unfolds, more information about the crime will probably draw public attention.
Another theme that emerges from November’s coverage of Phala Phala is the perception that the president has been given more of the benefit of the doubt than other citizens would in the same situation.
The word “special” was strongly associated with the president’s name, with ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba saying, “Ramaphosa cannot receive special treatment simply because he is the president of the country, and we will, therefore, keep working to ensure he is held accountable.”
The word “VIP” was also strongly associated with Ramaphosa’s name because of his VIP Presidential Protection Services who apparently investigated the Phala Phala theft in secret. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) could not mount a successful case against former Eskom chief executive Matshela Koko, calling attention to the effect of budget cuts on its work. As Maughan put it, “This is particularly hard to swallow when contrasted with the ease of government spending on VIP protection for President Cyril Ramaphosa and his high-level cohorts in government.
“The Institute of Security Studies previously pointed out that the budget for this protection — which is available to only 200 people — is 74% of the total budget allocated to the NPA and 167% of the Hawks budget.”
The name of Arthur Fraser, the man who broke the story of Phala Phala by laying charges against Ramaphosa in June last year, was also closely associated with the president’s name in November’s news. Every time Fraser’s name is mentioned in conjunction with Ramaphosa’s, he is pointedly called a “Zuma administration spy boss”, calling attention to his possible ulterior motives for waiting until more than two years after the theft to report it.
The one word closely associated with Ramaphosa that was not linked to Phala Phala in November’s news is “appointment”. This refers back to Ramaphosa’s appointment of Thembisile Majola in March 2022 as a long-awaited successor to Arthur Fraser as head of the State Security Agency (SSA). Majola has now resigned after just 20 months on the job. The Sunday World reported that “Majola not only felt overlooked and her contribution under-valued, but she also found her lack of access to Ramaphosa frustrating and disruptive to her ability to implement the vision she had for the SSA.” And so the president and the country remain without someone to restore this once-captured agency.
Fraser’s laying of charges seemed carefully timed to weaken Ramaphosa’s chances of being re-elected ANC president in the party’s December 2022 elective conference. As we all know, this failed, and the party threw its weight firmly behind Ramaphosa. Now that this has happened, other parties are queuing up to use Phala Phala to damage the ANC ahead of South Africa’s 2024 general elections. In addition to the ATM’s challenge against the public protector’s report, the Democratic Alliance has challenged the Reserve Bank report in court. ActionSA also says they are considering legal action.
Ramaphosa has made himself vulnerable to this because there are still far more questions than answers about what happened at Phala Phala and why it was covered up.
The term “smallanyana skeletons”, a unique South African coinage, describes troublesome, dirty little secrets that just won’t go away. While Bathabile Dlamini had less-than-pure motives for first saying that we all have smallanyana skeletons, she was right.
Ramaphosa may have smallanyana skeletons tucked away in Phala Phala, but these should also serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of us, politicians and other citizens alike.
Almost all of us have played fast and loose with the law from time to time and rationalised our actions, fooling ourselves into thinking that no one will be hurt.
Those skeletons eventually do come to light, and in the meantime, they rot away, destroying trust and creating gaping holes in our social fabric. When will we bring out these smallanyana skeletons and deal with them?
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Kenya scraps controversial doctor exchange programme with Cuba:
To much fanfare, 100 Cuban doctors arrived in Nairobi in 2017.
They were part of an exchange programme between Cuba and Kenya. Cuban doctors were sent to fill some of the gaps in the Kenyan healthcare system and Kenyan doctors would get training in Cuba. Now, six years later, Kenyan health authorities have decided to cancel the arrangement.
Kenya’s healthcare system suffers from a mismatch between patient needs and the care that its diminishing and ill-equipped workforce can provide. A study in 2017 found that there were not enough chest specialists, physicians and emergency-care nurses in the country.
A 2018 assessment of health facilities reported that just 12% of all doctors in the country had the standard items needed to prevent infections, such as gloves, infectious waste storage and disinfectant.
Cuban doctors were billed as the answer to this malaise. The plan was for each Kenyan county to get at least two specialist Cuban doctors — including family physicians, oncologists and surgeons in plastic, orthopaedic, neuro and other specialities.
“Medical diplomacy” has been an essential component of Cuba’s foreign policy for close to 60 years. It routinely sends its health workforce to other countries and receives foreign workers to train.
To date, over 130 000 Cuban doctors have taken part in international missions in more than 100 countries.
In post-apartheid South Africa, following the flight of white doctors, an agreement was signed with Cuba that saw more than 450 Cuban doctors and medical lecturers deployed here between 1995 and 2005.
At the same time, more than 700 South African medical students were enrolled at Cuba’s Latin American Medical School.
Kenya sought to follow the same approach but it did not prove to be as quick a fix as intended. Soon after the announcement of the exchange programme, Samson Misango, a doctor working for the government, filed a lawsuit to bar the Cuban doctors.
He argued that the Kenyan government had lied about a shortage of specialised medical practitioners and that there were many unemployed Kenyan doctors available. The suit was eventually dismissed.
The programme also proved unpopular with Kenya’s doctors’ union, partly because Cuban doctors received double the salary of their Kenyan counterparts.
Then, in 2019, Dr Hamisi Ali Juma, a Kenyan doctor on the exchange programme to Cuba, was found dead in his hostel in Havana. This shone a spotlight on the poor living conditions of doctors sent to Cuba for specialist training.
Kenya’s medical union and parliamentarians called for the programme to be cancelled.
In October, the cabinet secretary for health Nakhumicha Wafula announced that the ministry would not renew the bilateral agreement with Cuba, saying “our very own healthcare professionals are committed to the cause”.
However, the sudden withdrawal of 100 specialist doctors from the health system is bound to have consequences.
When Brazilian strongman Jair Bolsonaro said during his presidency that Cuban doctors in his country could only stay if they took an exam to validate their medical credentials, Havana withdrew them.
Health experts said that millions of Brazilians, most of whom live in remote, vulnerable areas, were subsequently left without healthcare.
After Wafula’s announcement, Kisumu Governor Anyang Nyong’o asked the national government to rescind the decision. “Where will we find replacements for these doctors?”
It’s a good question but the exchange programme with Cuba might not be the right answer.
As of 2021, with 13 376 registered medical doctors, Kenya had 26 physicians for every 100 000 residents. The World Health Organisation recommends a ratio of 100 doctors per 100 000 people.
After six years, the exchange programme had added 100 doctors (for the price of at least 200 local ones) and sent 50 Kenyans for specialist training in Cuba — hardly denting the problem.
The union of Kenyan medics has suggested that the money for the exchange programme should instead be used for scholarships at local medical schools. This is probably a more sustainable solution.
Given that African doctors are leaving the continent in their tens of thousands to find better working conditions overseas, perhaps more needs to be done to keep domestic health workers happy.
This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. It is designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download your free copy here.
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If we really want change, we must be prepared to feel uncomfortable:
In writing a recent book chapter on how to bring about greater equity in South Africa through greater self-awareness, I decided to start my reflection with a moment in time when humans are not really known for being too aware of who they are or what they believe: childhood.
I was about six or seven when I first met Nandi (not her real name). It was circa 1988 and although apartheid was approaching its official expiration date, it was still very much an everyday reality. Nandi was the first African girl who had joined my pre-school of overwhelmingly Indian make-up (‘Indian’ being misleading shorthand for a broad assembly of creeds and languages).
She was teary-eyed on this first day as an outsider in a strange world. I approached her with the innocence of a six-year-old, and we would become firm friends.
But more than just becoming my friend, Nandi would change how I looked at the world. Years later in high school, I would watch the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) with both anger and despair as I began to understand what divisions had been wrought among people. I also began to interpret the words and actions of my schoolmates and community through a new lens — the language we used to describe our African compatriots, for instance.
Nandi would make me appreciate how privileged I’d been. My two-parent family with an adult breadwinner; food, shelter, water and education within reach — these were far removed from the realities of many other children in South Africa.
The more things change, the wider the gap grows
The divide between South Africans seems to widen by the day. Less than half (46%) claim to have personally experienced reconciliation since the end of apartheid, reports the 2021 SA Reconciliation Barometer, a public-opinion survey conducted regularly by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation for what the organisation says is the longest-running reconciliation barometer anywhere in the world.
There is among respondents a strong yearning for a unified national identity. However, only a small majority (52%) believe that South Africans have made progress in reconciling. Overall, 72% believe that South Africans still need reconciliation.
What’s worrying is that nearly 30 years after the first democratic election and the birth of the rainbow nation, South Africans still do not trust each other. Only about a third of respondents say they have trust in people from other languages (33%) and other race groups (31%).
The most common sources of division, says the report, are those between rich and poor, and the division between South Africans of different race groups. The results of the report suggest that there is popular support for a united national identity, but that there are material and historical divisions to overcome before this vision can be realised.
How can knowing yourself aid reconciliation – and equity?
The TRC was, despite the criticism levelled at it, an attempt to get the country to do the inner work that was necessary to deal with the trauma, pain and suffering inflicted over apartheid. Many resisted that call to reflection then, and I would argue that many resist it still. If we had equality after 1994, we sadly still fall short of equity. Which, for our purposes here, means the necessary levelling of the opportunities that allow us to compete fairly and on equal standing — best represented I think by the famous diagram of the adult man and two young (shorter) children trying to watch a baseball match over a fence. Equality means everyone gets a box to stand on, but that leaves some unable to see over the fence. Equity means that some get boxes, while others who no longer need it don’t get any, but in this way, all can look over the fence.
It’s a conversation South Africans remain uncomfortable with. We have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of giving others what we have, even if we don’t need it. We need to question why we respond like this.
I recall the fears and doubts I had to overcome, with the help of amazing businesspeople, when I first entered the corporate world. I had to dig deep as well when I started my MBA at Henley Business School, a programme that uniquely demands greater self-awareness alongside elevation of thinking and capacity to lead organisations. This is something I see every day as I coach MBA students at Henley Business School Africa, too. You have to understand how you respond to triggers and situations, and why you respond the way you do. I was aided in improving my self-awareness through the programme and readings I did on what happens at the neurological level — right there in the brain — when we feel uncomfortable, when our most sacred and ingrained beliefs and truths are being challenged.
But it is in this process of inner work that we develop the ability to embrace equity meaningfully. It is only through this greater knowledge of self that we can begin to relate to others. Through this process we can dismantle the “built-in” biases we walk around with and become aware of our blind spots. It is then that we begin to understand how our choices are shaped by the mental models and narratives that built the lens through which we see the world and others.
Meeting and befriending Nandi was only the beginning of a process that would take me decades to make sense of. By speaking to her — and later watching the painful proceedings of the TRC — I became aware of a world beyond my own home and community. In time, I became more aware of our faults, the language we used for and towards other racial groups, and our part in continuing the inequities inflicted on so many.
This is not always a pain-free exercise. I had to question myself daily and was on the opposing side in many instances with family and my community. But in the light of the troubles our country still faces, the deep inequities and the deeper divides, it may be the only way to set our nation right.
Arthi Rabikrisson is an award-winning leadership coach and strategy adviser, and author of the book Redefining the Rules: Incredible Women On How to Embrace Equity, recently published by KeyNote Women Speakers. She is founder and managing director of Prerna Advisory, a coaching, consulting and capital introduction firm. Arthi has an MBA and Post-graduate Certificate in Coaching and Behavioural Change from Henley Business School Africa, and tutors current MBA candidates at the business school.
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