By Dr Pali Lehohla
The passing on of Dr Essop Pahad, the former minister in the presidency of the first three administrations marked an end of an era. An era the end of which President Mbeki referred to four times in his speech on the 16th of December 2007 in Polokwane at the 52nd Elective Congress.
He posed the question: “Does the ANC have the will and capacity to lead our country and people over the next five years in a manner that will enable the nation to celebrate our Centenary in 2012 together, paying heartfelt tribute to our movement for what it has and would have done to sacrifice everything for our liberation; and using that freedom to lead the national offensive to accelerate the advance towards the creation of a South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it?”
The answer to this question is obvious given our deplorable state of affairs as the lamp of life of struggle and freedom to many is dimming, and more recently, to Mrs Sally Motlana and Dr Essop Pahad.
Thus, the question becomes even more in our faces and conspicuous, as amplified by fourteen wasted years to date. In his address on the passing of Mrs Motlana, former president Mbeki quoting the late Mme Sally, said: “The ANC I knew has died. We must start anew and build it. The ANC I knew was the ANC of Luthuli, Mandela and Robert Resha.”
Dr Pahad, as part of the cohort that would depart after the 2012 centenary commemoration, was part of the question of whether the ANC has the capacity to lead.
As he departs, he must be sharing the views of one who passed on a few weeks before him, who said, “The ANC I knew has died.” Dr Essop Pahad was then deputy minister in the presidency of then-President Nelson Mandela.
He inherited Statistics South Africa as the political head shortly after Minister Naidoo was transferred from the RDP office after it was shut down in the presidency. He did not know what trouble he had inherited.
He had inherited, among many others, an underfunded agency tasked with running the first census in a democracy. He had inherited a catalyst for demarcation feuds. He had inherited, as fate would have it later, a scandal of early entrepreneurship.
All these challenges burst over twelve months in his lap. The interactions with him were the most intense, but it was this that generated a lasting and memorable relationship between himself and I. His standard greeting was always, “uena (you) Pali do you know how to count?”
A census is the biggest public mobilisation in times of peace. Its successful publicity is often its downfall because it attracts conditionalities for participation for those who are aggrieved.
The people of Chief Ramopodi of Motetema and Nebo refused to be counted because their demands to be included in Mpumalanga province out of Limpopo were denied.
They had made several representations to the Central Statistical Services, and as head of the operation, the representations ended on my lap. And I provided no solution.
The community escalated the matter to Presidency. Dr Pahad and I went to Nebo in October 1996 to address a very hostile youth formation whose demands were Mpumalanga or nothing.
His eye caught a placard written, “Pahad, when are you going to count in India?” That angered and got the better part of him as he lashed out at the lads. His response added fire to the fuel, and the youth burst out in song, and that was the unceremonious end of the census meeting.
Stage two was about an official who had arranged for forward and reverse logistics who squeezed in a relative to run the operation. Dr Mark Orkin, then head of CSS, and I went to brief him of this impending scandal and how it came to our attention.
The official had become so brazen and greedy that she executed her trade for insignificant loads at exorbitant prices to the state. Pahad and Orkin, in an animated exchange, were saying look what greed has done. The small load just exposed the bigger malfeasance. She should have been just satisfied.
No sooner had they exchanged on rationalising the consequences of greed versus contentment under which the crime would not have surfaced, they looked at each other like naughty boys as Pahad giggled, saying: “Mark, can you see the Indian and Jewish instincts on money playing out?”
We all burst out laughing.
The community of Chief Ramopodi ended up being counted as we summoned the power of the Statistics Act, which meant deploying the force of law. But it was important to go back and make peace. In January 1997, I was back with his envoy to make peace with the Ramopodi community. Despite his stubbornness and my way character, he always carried this self-effacing and self-ridiculing character.
This made him very affable.
This stalwart of struggle had his last breath on Thursday morning last week. Like many before him: “The ANC they knew has died.”
The indictment could not be more pulsating, and the question former president Mbeki asked in Polokwane fifteen years ago could not be more relevant – Does the ANC have the capacity and will to lead?
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician- General of South Africa.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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