Ramaphosa has failed, is still failing and shows no sign of reversing the deadly trend

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s inability to confirm or deny immediately whether our military sold weapons to Russia is part of a growing mass of evidence that he is not in control of his own government – seemingly unable to control events, or even influence their direction. 

Some of this must be his responsibility; he sought election as President. However, it is also true that our state, like many others, has been weakened by the pandemic, and other events that would be beyond the control of any government. In the chaos of the 2020s, it may be impossible to determine what portion of our state’s failure is his fault, and what is beyond his control.

On Thursday, just hours after the US Ambassador to South Africa said he would stake his life that Russia received arms from Russia in December 2022, Ramaphosa was asked in Parliament whether this was true.

Instead of either confirming or denying it, Ramaphosa played for time, and said that there would be an investigation. Later, the Presidency confirmed there would indeed be an investigation into the docking of the ship the Lady R and that it would be headed by a retired judge.

Interestingly, Ramaphosa also chided the DA’s John Steenhuisen for the way in which he had phrased his question about the docking at Simon’s Town naval base. Ramaphosa said specifically: “Simon’s Town is not what you call your government’s Simon’s Town. It is South Africa’s. It belongs to the people of South Africa…”

While Ramaphosa may have been trying to make a political point, in the process he surely bolstered the basis of Steenhuisen’s question. It must follow that if the naval base indeed belongs to the people of South Africa, these very same people of South Africa have the right to know what happened in Simon’s Town during those action-packed nights last December – and it should enjoy the right to know within days, not years later.

It is now six months since the Russian ship docked at Simon’s Town. It seems impossible to believe that given all of the public attention and reporting on the issue, Ramaphosa and his government still do not know what happened there.

While Defence Minister Thandi Modise has said that the Russians delivered “an old, outstanding order for ammunition used by the Special Forces”, there is still no clarity as to what was loaded on to the ship.

And this, of course, is the issue.

In some ways, the entire claim by the US that our government sold weapons to Russia rests on the fact that the same government went to great lengths to conceal and still has not explained what happened.

All of this raises many questions.

In the hours after the US claim, the political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki said on Newzroom Afrika that “the president to me, as a political analyst, doesn’t seem to be in full control of the Cabinet”.

He points to a previous example of how Denel bought a British company owning intellectual property around armoured cars. This was then sold, under murky circumstances, to a company in the UAE.

Considering that in recent times the SANDF has attempted to spend R228-million on unproven and unregistered Covid-19 drugs from Cuba, and that more and more stories about alleged corruption have emerged, this may lead to claims that in fact government does not know what happened in Simon’s Town, and that this was indeed some kind of corrupt deal involving a senior naval official acting on their own.

One of the interesting claims about all of this comes from News24, which reported over the weekend that “sources had indicated that the operation when the vessel arrived had been led by Armscor as the agent for the Department of Defence and the SANDF”.

Recently the chairman of Armscor, Philip Dexter, tweeted: “We look forward to hosting and protecting the President of the Russian Federation. Imperialists and their joke of an ICC be damned. They must first arrest all their war criminals before we take them seriously. Even then we will defend Putin.”

While this may be legitimate political speech (although it may be important to ask whether someone who claims to support human rights believes President Vladimir Putin would ever fight for their human rights), it adds fuel to the fire of speculation.

Could it have been someone else who was able to pull this off without the government knowing?

It appears that the US may know more about what is happening at Simon’s Town than our government. As Moeletsi Mbeki reminds us, this is not the first time. In 1983, the commodore of the base for the apartheid government, Dieter Gerhardt was caught by the US spying for the KGB.

Power shoe is on the other foot