So, foreign minister Lindiwe Sisulu has issued a démarche to the ambassadors to SA of the US, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The démarche is a requirement that they present themselves to the department for international relations & co-operation to explain why they wrote and signed and then sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa demanding that he speed up the fight against corruption in SA and move with purpose to address the many areas of policy uncertainty that deter investors.
That was the essence of the Sunday Times lead yesterday. But Sisulu should tread carefully lest she embarrass herself. She should ask her staff to please get a copy of the letter from the presidency. The one containing the date and the signatures of the ambassadors. Once she has that she can go ahead and dress the ambassadors down because, I have to say, I was taken aback by the story.
I’ve been around a little bit but I’d never heard of such a thing. It really is unprecedented and it was a big moment. Here’s what the Sunday Times said.
The absurdly named Dirco appropriately pronounced itself “disappointed” with the note. That is only to be expected. Diplomats accredited in any country are expected to have as their first and really only port of call the local department of foreign affairs. Dirco followed this up with a full diplomatic barrage, issuing a haughty statement announcing the démarche. I’ve printed it in full at the end of this article in case the link disappears.
The thing is, I’ve this morning spoken to two of the ambassadors who supposedly wrote this letter to Ramaphosa. They flatly deny it. No letter to the president, no signatures, nothing official. It’s a problem because if the letter was never written then it cannot be made suddenly to appear.
Nonetheless there is a document and it was written by the five embassies and it does raise serious question about the probity of the SA state and investment landscape. It has no official status. It was prepared for discussion with the five investment ambassadors Ramaphosa appointed and would easily have found its way into the hands of the president’s economic adviser, Trudi Makhaya. Hence its presence in the presidency. There is even a vague chance Ramaphosa has, in the seven months since it was written, actually read the letter. These countries represent more than 75% of the direct investment in SA.
But, seriously, for Dirco to then pick up on the Sunday Times story, clearly not checking with the embassies involved and to issue such a strong statement is merely a measure of how foolish officialdom can be. An old hand a covering SA diplomacy, Peter Fabricius, wrote this piece for Daily Maverick early this morning.
But step away from the question about whether the story is old or new or important or unimportant. I would have used the document as a news story had I still been editing. The reporter, Ranjeni Munusamy, spoke to some of the authors and they told her that their governments were following with interest the unfolding events at the Zondo Commission, where evidence of the kind of corruption the memo talks about spews forth every hour.
The fact is there’s more to this story than mere form. The five countries would traditionally regard SA as a “friend”, a place with a relatively similar outlook on the world — liberal, open, markets-driven. If not “Western” anymore then at least nonaligned.
And they want it to stay that way. It is interesting that the Swiss are among the authors. We don’t sell the Swiss much but we (or our rich) bank there. It is an important signature.
And these are people and nations in which Ramaphosa would himself feel welcome and comfortable. So it would be a mistake in any event to view the memo as a hostile act. An extraordinary one for sure, but a pleading and not a threatening one.
You can see why. However much Ramaphosa sympathisers might want to give him time and space, the fact is he is moving very slowly. In fact it sometimes seems as if he is only now beginning to appreciate the scale of the job he has. Suddenly, he appoints a team of experts to advise on Eskom, others to give him a list for the heads of the NPA and the SA Revenue Service (Sars).
Partly it is a ploy to distance himself from being seen to be too directly involved. But that itself is merely a measure of the weight of party politics on his job of running a government. Ramaphosa cannot simply decree that the right thing be done. He has to approach almost everything through the smoke of his own party’s internal battlefield.
So he finds a solution to Eskom. It involves breaking it up into power transmission and generation businesses. It makes total sense. Eskom is a great transmitter and it has become a poor generator. So the transmission business could buy power from whomever it liked.
No. The unions threaten action. The treat of violence is implicit. There’s an election in a few months. What politician in the world would show them two fingers now? None, I assure you.
But the ambassadors know all of this. They know Ramaphosa faces unbelievable pressures. One minute his new chief prosecutor is thrilling the country with a stirring call to arms. The next the entire board of the vast state-owned pension fund manager resigns, his deputy finance minister among them.
It never stops. SA has been badly damaged. The ambassadors know that too. But it’s not their job to be understanding. These people are our allies and sometimes the truth is best heard from friends.
I’m sure Ramaphosa will lose no sleep over the note, though it may, now that it has leaked, make his life back in the party more difficult. He cannot be seen as a pawn, even though they are merely asking him to do what he has already promised to do — to stop policy uncertainty and to crack down on corruption. Just two things really. How hard can that be?
Part of the problem is that SA presidents have proven very difficult to get access to even if you are the ambassador of an important trading partner. Diplomats have complained for years that they get no access even to foreign ministers, though under Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma the Russians and Chinese were treated especially well.
Dirco complains now, but what would have become of the letter had it been written to Sisulu? Her officials would have put it through a thousand hoops and it would never have reached Ramaphosa. Maybe not. Maybe Sisulu has improved things.
Ramaphosa’s office, too, is very poor at responding to events and at communication itself. I hear this complaint often.
But what Ramaphosa should do though, after Sisulu has démarched them (she should actually withdraw it if possible), is this: call them all in to his office. Have Sisulu there. And ask each of them what help their countries’ intelligence, financial and security services are able to give to help SA track down and repatriate all the money that has been stolen in the past 10 years, to track down and repatriate the criminals who have stolen it, and to ensure that our coming election, in whatever way possible, is protected from Russian interference — physical, financial and digital.
I don’t know about the Swiss but if between them the FBI, MI6 and the Bundesnachrichtendienst can’t stop Vladimir Putin supporting the remains of the Zuma faction inside the ANC in the run-up to the election, then no-one can.
The big thing for Ramaphosa is the number of hours in the day. There aren’t enough and he isn’t a lazy guy. He knows he’s slow to make huge call and he knows people are impatient with him. He will take the ambassadorial memo as merely more advice. He knows what has to be done and, in our impatience we should be careful what we wish for.
I don’t want a president who puts people in jail. I want an independent and well-resourced prosecuting authority that does that. I don’t want a president who says: “If you’ve got a problem bring it to me and I’ll fix it.” No. Other people should fix problems. It’s Ramaphosa’s job to make sure the right people are in the right jobs.
Getting that right takes time. Take the new head of Sars. Ramaphosa has already done the heavy lifting in getting rid of the old one. Applications for Tom Moyane’s replacement closed on January 18. They sit in finance minister Tito Mboweni’s in tray. Ultimately the appointment is Ramaphosa’s to make. He wants a short-list from the Treasury.
So, again, we wait ...
Meanwhile, here’s the Dirco statement:
Statement on the Memorandum by Embassies of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland
February 3, 2019
The Department of International Relations & Co-operation (Dirco) notes with disappointment the dispatching of a Memorandum to the Office of The Presidency by the Embassies of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. This is a departure from established diplomatic practice.
In terms of acceptable diplomatic practice, protocol and convention, diplomatic missions are expected to communicate to the receiving state by means of a note verbale [diplomatic note] conveyed through the Department of International Relations & Co-operation. All embassies, regional and international organisations accredited to SA are aware of this protocol and universal norm. South African diplomatic missions abroad consistently observe this protocol by directing official communication to the respective foreign ministries in the countries of accreditation.
The South African government is intensifying its efforts to deepen and expand economic relations with a number of countries around the world, and is pleased with the enthusiastic response its efforts have yielded thus far. All matters that have been raised by investors are being addressed by the respective clusters of our government. We are satisfied that all the branches of our democratic state, including state agencies, are vigorously pursuing their respective mandates to address our current challenges.
The Minister of International Relations & Co-operation, Ms Lindiwe Sisulu, has instructed the Department to démarche the concerned ambassadors with a view to discussing substantive matters contained in their correspondence, and to reiterate acceptable protocol in addressing such matters.
The Department of International Relations & Co-operation would like to remind all diplomatic missions accredited to SA to address official correspondence through the appropriate diplomatic channels.
Inquiries: Ndivhuwo Mabaya, Dirco head of communications & spokesperson.
083-645-7838.
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