BRUCE'S LIST: Drunk on Gupta Kool-Aid, Zwane flops

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What is wrong with mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane? Dozens of international and local mining executives assemble in Cape Town for the annual Mining Indaba. Zwane is invited to give the opening address. Now mining is still the single most important industrial or economic activity in SA. It is the one and only reason there is any money in this country at all. It is the one industry which, well-run and consistently regulated, could offer SA prosperity whichever direction we may choose to grow in the future.

All Zwane had to do on Monday was to assure the investors who had taken the trouble to come and listen to him that government would be a strong but firm partner, that legislation would be transparent and fair and reasonable and recognise that it is them, the investors, who put their money at risk in our mines.

But not this guy. Not Zwane. He had nothing new to say to the miners and there’s a very simple explanation for that. His agenda as minister does not involve, in the slightest, reassuring traditional mining capital. It involves making life as difficult as possible for them in the name of "radical economic transformation", which is Zuma-speak for enriching his friends. It was Zwane who, helped by Brian Molefe at Eskom, chased Glencore off the Optimum coal mine and then hustled in the crony Gupta family as owners. Zwane has drunk the Gupta Kool-Aid, their "generosity", and he belongs to them. And they’re highly organised, the Zuptas. Hunting is best done in packs. Here’s our sorry story all over again. More wasted opportunity. And I thought the Business Day editorial captured the mining dilemma well this morning.

Zwane, hand-picked by the Gupta family, knows what he has to do. He will survive if he carries out the agenda. He’ll survive the coming cabinet reshuffle. It’s coming but it isn’t at all clear in what form. Zuma is missing a deputy minister and wants to get his chosen successor, his former wife, back in the cabinet. Some troublemakers will go. Tourism minister Derek Hanekom will pay for asking for Zuma’s resignation late last year. Economic development minister Ebrahim Patel might pay for protecting his integrity. Deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas will go for irritating the Guptas and causing so much trouble by revealing that the Guptas had offered him a large amount of cash to become finance minister at the expense of his then boss, former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene. Will present finance minister Pravin Gordhan go? Zuma may not be strong enough. We will see. But I thought Stephen Grootes was very good again this morning on the complexities of ANC politics.

Almost everyone who is anyone has what social development minister Bathabile Dlamini calls a "smolanyana skeleton" in their closet. And Zuma remembers them all. Just yesterday former Defence Force chief of staff and now Zuma critic Gen Siphiwe Nyanda was interrupted at a press conference by a protester wanting to know what had happened to a colleague of his who had disappeared on a mission into SA. Who put that protester there? 

And because his powers are so great, Zuma is able to control what happens to whom and when. So when Jonas reported about a year ago that the Gupta family had offered him money to replace Nene, people should have been arrested immediately and charged under our anti-corruption laws. But not a single thing has happened. The Hawks, who would investigate a fly if it sat on Zuma’s shoulder, have done nothing. Nothing about the Jonas accusation. The Guptas are not even being investigated. In fact, they’re back in SA with a vengeance. But God help you if you’ve been standing in the Guptas’ way. Then the Hawks will rain down all hell on you.