The knives are out for Sicelo Shiceka. We’ve seen the frequent and detailed media reports implicating him in excessive and improper expenditure of public funds. One report alleges that he even drew from the public purse to visit a girl-friend doing jail-time in a Swiss prison.
Not only that, Shiceka reportedly hired a limousine at a cost of more than R30 000 from his hotel to the prison. One would have thought that, under such circumstances, Shiceka would have preferred anonymity.
But, he insisted on being Ministerial, even on a drive to prison, visiting a convict under what now seems to be specious grounds. This may well be the reason why even the normally protective ANC seem willing to have Jacob Zuma flush him out of the cabinet.
The public is similarly outraged, calling for him to be fired. Is that the solution, really?
Shiceka’s alleged malfeasance shines the spotlight on a much bigger, worrisome malaise than an irrepressible urge for self-indulgence. Consider this: had Shiceka not fallen ill, we would possibly not have known of all these sordid details. Except for that small matter of him claiming to have a Masters Degree, none of these dramatic details came out whilst Shiceka was still showing up in the office.
He either did an excellent job keeping this malfeasance under wraps, or his officials were just too terrified to tell or rein in his excesses.
So, firing Shiceka will not end ministerial abuse of state resources. If his successor, assuming Shiceka doesn’t return, has a similar penchant, he or she is likely to get away with it, as long she or he shows up for work to keep the lid on or terrorise staff into silence.
How sure are we that Shiceka is the only one who has a weakness to splurge on money that’s not his? We have no way of knowing, unless there’s a leak.
But, the public service doesn’t quite encourage leaks, even though we have legislation (ie the Protected Disclosures Act) purporting to protect whistle-blowers.
Back in 2008, for instance, the then Chief Financial Officer at the Land Bank, Xolile Ncame, was fired for blowing a whistle on irregular transfers of funds from the Department of Agriculture’s AfriBEE Fund, via the Bank, to various suspicious companies.
When he attempted to investigate the irregularities, Themba Langa, then chairman of the board, was given marching orders too. Both men were fired, even though the allegations hadn’t been disproved. In fact, the extent of the rot at the bank led to its ministerial location being switched away from the Department Agriculture’s Lulu Xingwana to Trevor Manuel at the Treasury.
Ncame’s reward for exposing the rot was unemployment for more than two years.
The dismissal stained his otherwise sterling reputation as a chartered accountant. Companies seem reluctant to touch him. No-one cared. Ncame had to clear his name first before he could stand a chance of re-gaining employment. Clearing his name required lawyers, and they don’t come cheap. The Department piled up Ncame’s misery by dragging the case.
They didn’t mind because their lawyers were paid from the bottom-less public purse, whereas Ncame drew from personal savings to pay his lawyers. The intent was to stop the case by bankrupting him.
Fortunately, before Ncame went completely bankrupt, almost three years into the case, the Department settled. But, the experience must have been hellish for Ncame, whilst Xingwana’s ministerial career continued to flourish. Imagine what would have happened to Ncame if he didn’t have money for those exorbitant lawyers. And, he has been vindicated.
Last month the Hawks arrested the officials that Ncame had fingered, but he had to experience hell first before the right thing could be done.
Now knowing what people like Ncame went through, why would anyone out there want to lift a lid on the looting of state money?
The system is set up against whistle-blowers, despite the presence of legislation. You won’t be applauded as a hero, but punishment will be your reward.
Not only does the public service discourage leaks, but also forces accounting officers into silence. Surely, DGs are aware of ministerial excesses. After all, they sign off on ministerial expenditure.
A minister does not have his or her own ministerial budget, but uses the Department’s, over which a DG is an accounting officer.
Can you really blame them for their silence or compliance with ministerial instruction to approve irregular expenditures? Olive Shisana found her continued stay at the Health Department unbearable after she refused to take the flak for wasteful expenditure on Mbongeni Ngema’s unsuccessful theatrical play to educate the public about HIV/Aids.
The then minister, Nkosazana Zuma, apparently insisted that Shisana take responsibility for the flop, but she refused, saying the decision wasn’t hers to start with.
In a somewhat similar case, Siviwo Dongwana, the DG of Public Works, is currently on suspension for asking what his minister, Gwen Mahlangu, must have thought were inappropriate questions. Mahlangu had replaced Jeff Doidge, who had been fired earlier by President Jacob Zuma.
Doidge had recruited Dongwana, a chartered accountant, into the department, and together they initiated investigations and froze a number of fuzzy contracts they inherited upon assuming office. Doidge’s stay at the department was cut short by a presidential dismissal, and now his successor, Mahlangu, seems determined to get rid of Doidge’s DG, Dongwana.
Not only that, Mahlangu quickly approved the deals that both Doidge and Dongwana considered dodgy.
The Public Protector’s office has now released its own findings validating both Doidge and Dongwana that the lease of the two buildings by Roux Shabangu to the Police Service was improper.
Minister Mahlangu professed innocence, but hasn’t offered a public explanation.
The minister said she needed an entire month to figure out how to explain her innocence to us. That must be some explanation the Minister is “cooking up”.
The Shiceka problem, if indeed there’s one, has little to do with the individual. The problem is fundamentally an institutional one. Ministers get away with a lot.
Their ministerial authority over DGs, for one, is just astonishing. Dislike by a minister seems sufficient to have a DG fired or reshuffled to some other department. Mind you this might have nothing to do with how you perform your job.
It’s just personal.
Ministers apparently prefer to hire their own DGs. Some even drag along the same DG to the various ministries they get recycled into throughout their stay in cabinet. The explanation is that they’ve built a personal rapport.
I suppose working with someone you like is somewhat pleasant, but it also erodes professionalism. Personal relations may be exerted on one to excuse, hide or ignore another’s malfeasance.
They may well be a lot of DGs out there who let their ministers get way with a lot of hubris because of personal relations.
No country can ever run a successful public administration based on personal relations.
We are not talking of a tribal authority here in some remote village, but a modern bureaucracy with the biggest economy in Africa.
Adherence to rules is the only protection we have against ourselves. Insisting on checks-and-balances measures is no insinuation of inherent depravity in a black personality. Human behaviour is simply fallible.
Good life is irresistible, especially if you’re not paying for it. The line between personal and public money becomes blurred.
Professionalisation of staff and increasing institutional capacity for self-regulation is the real defence against abuse of state resources.
Meritocracy must precede personal relations in the selection of staff. Nor should the career of a DG depend on the personal whims of a minister. Rather, an independent mechanism must be put in place to evaluate and decide on the fate of DGs. Making instruments such as the elusive Ministerial Handbook available to the public, coupled with strict enforcement of disclosure of assets, is another way of curbing individual excesses.
Knowing what the political leadership is entitled to by virtue of their positions makes it easier for any discerning mind to pick up excesses.
It also empowers the public to assume the role of a watch-dog, creating an intolerant environment for public decadence.
Hiding the Ministerial Handbook away from the public eye enables ministers to conceal their profligacy.
How else does one refute them when they furiously shout down any public probing:
“ The Ministerial Handbook entitles me”. Shiceka also claimed the handbook entitles him to galavant around with a sangoma using public money.
How does one dispute that without knowing the content of the handbook?
Concealment of the handbook from the public is a free- pass to ministerial profligacy.
The lone act of dismissing Shiceka will only perpetuate the illusion of a frugal administration, whilst the rot piles up under the veil of self-congratulatory rhetoric. We need an institutional shake-up.
l Ndletyana is a senior researcher at the HSRC and a member of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra)