Uncosted, untested, and – arguably – unconstitutional, our consensus-loving President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law last week the National Health Insurance Act.

“Whether you like it or not” is the new eve-of-poll presidential mantra.

One can only look in wonderment at how the state – over three decades – has ravaged and pillaged practically every public institution, and now seeks to collapse the private health sector, which works, into the decayed and dysfunctional state healthcare sector.

For evidence of this decay, look no further than Gauteng hospitals, many of which are sites of corruption, malpractice and misallocated resources – ground zero of the brave new world heralded by the NHI.

Beyond its unaffordability, its denial of choice and freedom, which are two key pillars of our constitutional order, there was another aspect of last week’s signing ceremony which heralded another, less spoken of, abuse of power.

In India, the practice of “purdah” involves the seclusion of women from public observation during periods of religious significance. In Britain, this term has been secularised and politicised to mean that “public money should not be used for party political purposes” during a general election campaign.

Furthermore, according to the House of Commons Library, “government and local authority resources cannot be used for party political campaigning at any time”. And, in the run up to an election, “particular care is taken …  government departments and councils will normally observe discretion about making new announcements or decisions that could influence voters”.

A nice idea for the Brits, and a pity it is that purdah is not the law of the land in South Africa, as this would allow opposition parties to compete on a more even political playing field.

Instead, almost daily, we are treated to the misuse and abuse of state (taxpayer-funded) resources, including magically arranged presidential imbizos in key battleground provinces. The chimera of the suddenly found presidential pen to sign the NHI into law at a public ceremony (you will search in vain for another example of a bill being signed into law by the president) is just the latest example, whatever the merits and clear demerits of the law itself.

Politics by media release and presidential performance attempts to cover the cracks, gaping fissures in fact, of three decades of hollowing out the state and its basic capacity to deliver services.

And then there is the clear and blatant disregard for existing law itself. Much trumpeting about transparency and expunging the hidden influence of money in politics accompanied the president signing into law the Political Party Funding Act in 2018, which capped donations to parties and required identification of major donors.

Yet on 17 May, Ramaphosa signed into law an eviscerating amendment to this law (minus a public signing ceremony at the Union Buildings this time) abolishing the funding limits and disclosure requirements, and, remarkably, allocating to himself the power and right to set new limits (or not).

The Economist magazine quotes Robyn Pasensie of the My Vote Counts as having said:

This places South Africa’s democracy and party accountability in peril and facilitates the undue influence by certain companies and actors on South Africa’s political and governance system.

The Economist article on money and South Africa’s election focused on how the (ANC) government gave a slice of the valuable mining company United Manganese of Kalahari (UMK) to (ANC funding front) Chancellor House, while another big slice of UMK is controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch and Putin crony Viktor Vekselberg.

Connecting the dots on this and the amendment to the party funding law led to the conclusion that “the government might have legislated with the aim of allowing secret donations to the ruling party just before an election seems entirely in character with how, in an act of self-dealing, the ANC-led government gave a slice of a valuable mining company to Chancellor House in the first place”.

Indeed. “Self-dealing” is an artful phrase for the deliberate collapse of even the pretense of a distinction between national and party interests. In Ramaphosa’s hands, they are one and the same.

Removing all vestiges of transparency 

Hot on the heels of that report, which had been in the public domain for a while, was an exposé by the investigative arm of the Daily Maverick, Scorpio, of how the ANC banked a R10 million donation “on the back of dubious tenders …[which] occurred in a tender system that is ripe for abuse”.

The full forensic detail of this appears in the report aptly headlined Party to the Plunder? Transparency is needed on ANC’s tender-linked fundraising machinery. 

Little wonder then that the amendment to the party funding law enacted by Ramaphosa is designed – precisely – to remove any vestige of transparency.

South Africa is not alone in the “self-dealing” of politicians and powerful parties. The City of Chicago, for example, is a byword for political corruption, although – unlike here – many of its leading politicians, from congressmen to state governors, get indicted, convicted and jailed.

Here, deep corruption and abuse of office and state coffers are reported with frequency, yet convictions are ever so rare.

And with the latest amendment to party funding laws, South Africa today is living proof of US commentator Michael Kinsely’s rule of thumb: “The scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the scandal is what’s legal.”