ROB ROSE: Foot-in-mouth SA Tourism targets whistleblower

Back in 2012, as articles began to appear suggesting that R203m in government money would be spent upgrading former president Jacob Zuma’s home in Nkandla, public works minister Thulas Nxesi demanded that the might of the state be trained on those who had dared to leak that information.

The media, and City Press in particular, had published “top secret” documentation, breaking the law, he thundered. “This therefore calls for an investigation to be launched to determine how City Press illegally ended up in possession of this document,” he said.

We know now, of course, that R246m in public money was used to upgrade Zuma’s home, as an investigation by former public protector Thuli Madonsela confirmed. Zuma, characteristically, brushed it off, so in August 2014 Madonsela wrote him a seven-page letter, giving him 14 days to comply. 

Yet after Madonsela’s letter was leaked, ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa griped that this was “private correspondence”. That leak was “ethically wrong”, Kodwa scolded — a rare clue that Zuma’s ANC just about had a grasp of how to use the word “ethics” in a sentence.

It’s a trope you’ll hear often, deeply revealing of the ethical priorities of the person, or organisation, concerned: it’s the leak that’s the problem, not the theft of taxpayer money.

It’s a trope you’ll hear often ... it’s the leak that’s the problem, not the theft of taxpayer money

You might remember this schtick from Richard Nixon, erstwhile president of the US, who tasked his chief of staff, HR Haldeman, with a “leaks project”, which debated routinely polygraphing members of the FBI. Nixon’s paranoia ended with his lackeys being caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate complex in 1972 and two years later, on August 9 1974, his resignation.

If, in fact, there is one statement that ought to provoke suspicion, it is the inclination of someone powerful to look past the revelations at hand, no matter how eye-poppingly scandalous, and pivot to demonising the leakers instead. It’s an instinct evident in cretins, prone to defending the indefensible.

Last week this inclination was on full display after the Daily Maverick revealed that South African Tourism was on the verge of inking a R900m sponsorship deal with UK Premier League football team Tottenham Hotspur, due to run from this year to 2027.

The next day, CEO Themba Khumalo, held aloft by hot air, sanctimoniously lectured the media about the propriety of running that story, adding that “whoever is responsible for that leak needs to be isolated — it is un-South African to behave in that manner”.

The story, he said was “leaked out of context”. What, then, is the right context? That a tourism agency — deluded about why foreigners are eschewing visits to the country in favour of travelling to nations which can keep the lights on and ensure personal security — had a budget it had to blow before the year-end? 

Khumalo, however, insisted the intention of the leak was “not to aid economic recovery”, but far more sinister.  That seems, put generously, a thumb-suck assessment — right up there with South African Tourism’s thumb-suck calculation that slapping a South African flag on the Tottenham Hotspur shirts would magically lead to an R88bn windfall in inbound tourism. 

“His attack on the whistleblower is outrageous,” says Hennie van Vuuren, the executive director of Open Secrets. “The very idea that something like this is ‘un-South African’ — which is much like US politicians labelling leaks which show flagrant abuses of power as ‘un-American’ — is entirely wrong, and the sort of view that provides a hiding place for scoundrels.”

If anything, says Van Vuuren, it’s precisely the reverse: it’s those people who share information that exposes abuses of power who display the deepest commitment to the values of our constitution. 

“Khumalo’s threat of a ‘full investigation’ was meant to scare the whistleblower, but it shows [Khumalo] would rather go after the person who shared those details than after those who may well have abused their office,” he says.

It would seem indisputable to any reasonable democrat that South Africa would be far worse off were it not for numerous leaks

That’s not wild supposition. The Daily Maverick has since reported that South African Tourism’s interim CFO, Johan van der Walt, previously worked for the WWP Group, which brokered the Spurs deal in exchange for what was to be a £1.5m (R31.3m) “activation” fee. 

Veteran journalist Max du Preez, founding editor of Vrye Weekblad, was on point when he described the person who leaked it as a “whistleblower and a hero”. Du Preez said that as we’re talking about public money, “discussing the deal after it was signed makes no sense”.

This is an eloquent riposte to Khumalo’s threats and, hopefully, why three South African Tourism directors — Enver Duminy, Ravi Nadasen and Rosemary Anderson — handed in their resignations last week. (Let’s hope they scarper before Khumalo gives them the polygraph plastic glove.)

When the FM asked to speak to Khumalo, South African Tourism said he was “not available” before our deadline. But the agency didn’t come back to us when asked for a breakdown of how that deal would unlock the promised R88bn in tourism. Hopefully, if the deal still happens and that R88bn doesn’t materialise, Khumalo would have the good grace to resign too.

But the point here is less about the tenuous arguments for that deal and more about the authoritarian objection to the fact that it was disclosed at all — even to the public expected to fund it.

It would seem indisputable to any reasonable democrat that South Africa would be far worse off were it not for numerous leaks — the Nkandla swindle, the bribes paid to foreign firms to secure the arms deal, and the Gupta leaks.

It is, in truth, precisely the opposite of what Khumalo claims: if anyone is un-South African, it’s those seeking to hush up this sort of information until it’s too late to alter course.

And it’s most definitely un-South African to divert all your attention to finding the leaker rather than engaging with the criticism. This, perhaps more than anything else, is why you should be very afraid of South African Tourism’s mad-hatter Spurs gambit.

Read the statement from the South African Tourism Board below.