The raging controversy surrounding the political influence Resolve Communications, the private sector company of former DA leader Tony Leon, has had in its dealings with DA ministers in the GNU certainly deserves to be investigated.
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THE raging controversy surrounding the political influence Resolve Communications, the private sector company of former DA leader Tony Leon, has had in its dealings with DA ministers in the Government of National Unity (GNU) certainly deserves to be investigated.
While lobbying, even robustly, is itself not illegal, it certainly sharply raises ethical issues about the relations between the private sector and government, which the Public Protector should investigate.
More specifically in this case is the serious allegation that Leon tried to use his communications consultancy company to persuade DA ministers to basically provide it with state contracts in the interests of his private sector clients.
There can be no doubt at all that in an interview last week the former leader of the DA, John Steenhuizen, was embittered by his demotion from minister of Agriculture to deputy minister of Trade and Industry, apparently as a result of the request by the new leader of the DA and mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, to President Cyril Rampahosa.
Did Steenhuizen, feeling very surprised and disappointed, spill the beans in effect and in the final analysis against the DA by his allegations against Leon and his company? He was certainly very unhappy with losing his minister of agriculture post to Willie Aucamp and was instead appointed to the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, which was in fact a demotion.
In fact, this controversy might somewhat even tarnish the former leader of the DA, Helen Zille's, huge attempt to win the mayorship of Johannesburg. After all, it is the DA, as such, which is in the firing line, in fact perhaps even more than Leon himself.
It is true that if it were a former leader of the ANC alleged to have tried to use his or her political influence to secure business contracts with the government, the DA would have quickly and opportunistically jumped to conclusions and demanded the Public Protector investigate the matter.
In the light of the upcoming local government elections on November 4, this matter assumes great importance. Full clarity of this now highly contentious and combustible matter is surely warranted in the interests of transparency and accountability.
However, I don’t think the spotlight should be on the minister of communications and digital technologies, Solly Malatsi, who conceded that he had talks with both Resolve Communications and the company of Elon Musk, Starlink, which he defended as part of his official duties in exploring prospects.
No, it is the apparently complicitous role of Leon and his company which is correctly the focus of much adverse publicity in the broad media over the past week.
Leon’s convenient defence of his actions was to repeatedly assert that such conduct was not a conflict of interest and that it did not amount to improperly and unbecomingly attempting to advantageously influence the commercial interests of his company and his clients.
It appears from media reports that Steenhuizen was decidedly unhappy with the apparently intense pressure Leon placed on him too when he was DA leader and minister of Agriculture, as he allegedly did with all other DA ministers. Are there perhaps more such scandalous stories we are yet to uncover?
Critical to these investigations is finding out the facts of what really happened in relations between the DA and ministers, especially since it is true that for a long time the DA conducted itself as the paragon of virtue and that all they did was free of corruption and malfeasance.
Equally, the DA continuously presented itself as consistently democratic, transparent and highly and unambiguously ethical. But some might argue that it now has egg on its face, in the light of Steenhuizen’s allegations against Leon.
What does former leader of the DA, Zille, have to say about this scandal? Apparently, she is too busy campaigning for mayor of Johannesburg and the November local government elections to respond to these serious allegations by Steenhuizen.
However, on June 30, Leon released a lengthy statement on his company website, strongly denying any guilt in these matters. He asserted that everything he has done is above board and completely lawful, including his dealings with DA ministers, and that there has been no corruption whatsoever.
He stated that what he found most objectionable was the insinuation that he corruptly sought to influence DA ministers to the advantage of the business interests of his company and its clients.
A key and critical question which the investigation must uncover is whether legitimate and even robust lobbying occurred with DA ministers or if there was undue interference by Leon and his company in the interests of his private sector clients.
On the other hand, if nothing unlawful occurred, there will still be a very interesting and intriguing question to answer: What did Steenhuizen seek to achieve by the very serious allegations he made in that interview, in effect against Leon, his company and the DA?
And will it not also have major repercussions inside the DA, and if so, will that affect Zille’s bid for the mayor of Johannesburg and its performance in the November elections?
What, however, appears inevitable if a thorough investigation is conducted by the Public Protector is the release of the political machinations inside the DA, which in the first place prompted Steenhuizen to make those serious political allegations against Leon in his interview.
The overriding concerns are what lies beneath all these revelations about the relationship between private sector interests and government tenders, which there can be no doubt has been much corruption of under ANC rule between 1994 and 2024, when it for the first time lost political power.
But those matters, especially given what has emerged from the Zondo Commission of Enquiry, are being couched in “state capture” terms. While we know now that under ANC rule there was overwhelming evidence of such corruption, the question is if this perhaps is also an instance of that involving Leon, his clients and the government.
To add to the woes facing Leon, the former mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, has also made allegations against him and his company while she was in office. It seems Leon and his company have much to answer for.
Let’s hope that the Public Protector does investigate these matters as rigorously as did the Zondo Commission of Enquiry. Has Steenhuiszen perhaps opened up a can of worms?
But the latest news is that the DA has officially stated that it is under no obligation to investigate the conduct of private companies, involving Resolve Communications and former DA leader Leon. Is this perhaps a cop-out by the DA? It probably is, most unfortunately and revealingly.
This situation might make the investigation by the Public Protector much more important and indeed urgent. Perhaps Steenhuizen has in that crucially important interview opened up a can of worms for Leon and the DA.
* Dr Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst, and commentator.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.