Laying bare ANC hypocrisy seen in Gupta dealings and since

It’s apposite that the publication of ANC stalwart Mathews Phosa’s political memoir has coincided with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pleadings this week before the Constitutional Court in the Phala Phala matter.

Together, the two events neatly encapsulate the arc of ANC corruption and impunity.

Both involve the ANC’s secret and possibly illegal movement of large amounts of foreign cash.

In Phosa’s case, Libyan money was used to fund the party over many years, including a “substantial” once-off contribution to its 2009 election campaign.

In Ramaphosa’s matter, it has been speculated that the American dollars paid by a Sudanese businessman in unreceipted cash to his Phala Phala game farm, and then stolen from where it had been hidden, was to buy support for CR at the ANC’s 2022 elective conference.

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In his book, Witness to Power, Phosa reveals that during his term of office as ANC treasurer-general, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi made a “substantial” secret donation to the party’s 2009 election campaign.

Phosa is also frank about the ANC’s willingness to auction influence for ready cash. He describes going with Zuma to meet the Gupta brothers since “it was no secret that the party was facing some serious financial challenges”.

When the Guptas offer to pay for Zuma to travel the globe to raise money, Phosa becomes “uncomfortable”.

If in the wake of the Schabir Shaik influence-buying scandals it emerged that the ANC was “being flown around the world for free, it would only add to the ANC’s and Zuma’s sorrows. I firmly told them as much.”

However, Phosa’s reluctance has more to do with being caught than any major ethical considerations.

At the Guptas’ suggestion, Phosa sets up an overseas bank account for the ANC in Dubai, through which funds sourced by the Guptas would be channelled.

This is patently a stratagem to avoid normal banking oversight but that doesn’t seem to worry Phosa.

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The Guptas proposed that money extracted by them for the ANC be split equally between the ANC, the Guptas and Zuma, which Phosa says he refused to agree to.

“To this day, I do not know whether any money accrued in that account and, if it did, how it was disbursed … I decided not to burden my fellow members of the top six [of the ANC] with the details of my dealing with the Guptas, as I dismissed it as a load of rubbish and a waste of time.”

What an extraordinary statement by the treasurer-general of the governing party, with all the stern fiduciary obligations that come with high public office.

Moreover, a man who is also a sworn attorney, an officer of the court, still to this day registered with the Legal Practice Council as a practising lawyer.

It gets wonderfully worse: “At the ANC’s third national general council meeting in Durban, I ran into Tony Gupta. I asked him when I could expect a contribution from the Guptas to the ANC’s coffers.

“But we have already made a contribution,” he replied. “We gave Baba [Zuma] R20 million!

“I was shocked and told him I was unaware. It was not reflected anywhere in the statements of account of my office as treasurer-general of the ANC. I had no idea if he was telling the truth, but it made me extremely uneasy.”

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This narrative in some ways shadows that of Ramaphosa. Both men publicly proclaim a commitment to transparency, accountability and rooting out corruption.

Yet both men are perfectly comfortable with corruption that benefits the ANC and its elite, as long as no-one is caught and embarrasses the party.

• Witness to Power by Mathews Phosa is published by Penguin.