Pity about Brian Molefe's stench of corruption that just won’t go away

If the president were to argue some day that Brian Motswagole Molefe was the most qualified and experienced politician to be appointed the country's finance minister, he would not be lying.

Molefe is no Des "Weekend Special" van Rooyen. When Trevor Manuel, Nhlanhla Nene and even Pravin Gordhan were first appointed as political heads of the National Treasury they had not had careers as decorated as Molefe's in the economic field.

By the time the 50-year-old was sworn in as an ANC MP on Thursday morning, fuelling speculation that he was headed for a post either as minister or deputy minister of finance, he had ticked all the boxes that would make him "the most qualified".

story_article_left1

He holds an MA in business leadership and a BCom from Unisa. He has a postgraduate economics diploma from the University of London and completed management and leadership programmes at the Harvard Business School and the Wharton Business School.

The controversy over which ANC branch he belongs to may have left many with the impression that Molefe is a political newcomer who has been parachuted in by the dominant ANC faction desperate to find a replacement for Gordhan.

But the truth is, he is an old hand in ANC politics, having cut his teeth in the anti-apartheid student and youth movements of the 1980s.

He was a member of the Azanian Students Organisation, the forerunner of the ANC-affiliated South African Students Congress, criss-crossing university campuses to win support for the organisation.

By the end of the '80s, Molefe was working for the Northern Transvaal Development Trust - one of many bodies set up to challenge the apartheid state.

Collins Chabane - the late public service and administration minister - officially inducted him into the ANC. The two grew close when Chabane returned from Robben Island, where he served six years for U mkhonto weSizwe activities. They both took shelter in a tiny room at the University of the North.

Molefe's father, Prince, was a sociology professor at the university.

Molefe and Chabane were mad about music. Chabane had become a musician while on the island and Molefe, in his younger days, had befriended Tim Modise, and other DJs who were later to become famous radio personalities, at a club in Mabopane, north of Pretoria.

At Chabane's funeral, following his death in a road crash, Molefe credited his friend for introducing him to Norman Granz's jam sessions.

When Chabane became the ANC's Limpopo provincial secretary, he appointed Molefe to manage the recently unbanned movement's petty cash.

block_quotes_start Molefe did not shy away from going toe-to-toe with major companies on corporate governance issues block_quotes_end

When freedom came, Molefe became one of the young cadres the ANC earmarked for deployment in strategic areas of the economy.

He and his then wife Portia, who later became a director-general at the Department of Public Enterprises, were sent to the UK to study further.

On his return Molefe had a stint in the private sector before joining then Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi's office as a chief director.

There began a 22-year public sector career that would today make him "the most experienced" were President Jacob Zuma to name him his next finance minister.

In Ramatlhodi's office, Molefe was responsible for strategic planning and was so highly valued that the Treasury persuaded him to join it as director of intergovernmental relations in 1997.

In the years that followed, Molefe - along with his best friend,Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, and Treasury Director-General Lungisa Fuzile, grew to become one of the young managers in Thabo Mbeki's administration. They were regarded as key to ensuring that the state would have the capacity to run the economy in the future.

Molefe's former colleagues at the Treasury say they regarded the department's then director-general, Maria Ramos - now CEO of Absa - as one of his mentors.

In 2003, when the Mbeki administration needed to use the financial muscle it had through the government pension fund's multibillion-rand investments in listed private sector companies, it was Molefe who Ramos seconded to run the Public Investment Corporation.

It was there that Molefe, who used to go by the nickname "Jimmy" when he was young, made the corporate world sit up and take notice.

Long before the Jimmy-(Manyi)-come-latelies - to mangle a phrase - started mouthing off about "white monopoly capital" and lack of transformation, Molefe was using the PIC to take on major companies for not appointing enough black people to their boards.

He took on Barloworld - in which the PIC held a 16% stake - for not having a single black executive director. The controversy led to the downfall of Barloworld chairman Warren Clewlow. It was also Molefe who rapped the industrial giant over the knuckles for being "racist and patronising" when it appointed a black advocate, Dumisa Ntsebeza, chairman and then naming a white man, Trevor Munday, as deputy chairman - a position the company had not had for a decade.

block_quotes_start It is a tragedy that he goes in under circumstances where he is highly compromised. If he is appointed minister, he won't enjoy the respect and confidence of the markets block_quotes_end

Molefe became a sort of cult figure in BEE circles when he strong-armed Sasol into appointing the PIC's nominee, Imogen Mkhize, to its board. The oil giant had resisted the move to have a black woman director on its board despite her impressive record in the sector.

Transformation was not his only obsession. Molefe did not shy away from going toe-to-toe with major companies on corporate governance issues.

He took credit when Bidvest's Brian Joffe - who had not been keen to separate the roles of chairman and CEO - changed his mind and named Cyril Ramaphosa as the group's new chairman, while Joffe kept the job as CEO.

"We also focus on other corporate governance principles - separating the chairmanship from the CEO's position, limiting the discretion of the board over share issues, leave for directors - we've consistently voted on these issues," Molefe told an interviewer at the time.

story_article_right2

With "radical economic transformation" a theme of the embattled Zuma government, the president's supporters are pointing to all this history when punting Molefe for the finance ministry.

He is the guy who would put "white monopoly capital" in its place, they say.

Yet with all his qualifications, extensive experience and activism, the reality is that Molefe would be most unsuitable to hold the position of finance minister.

The stench of corruption that forced him out of his job as Eskom CEO, following public protector Thuli Madonsela's State of Capture report, remains heavy.

He tearfully walked away from Eskom, saying he was doing so in order to have time to clear his name following the damning report that implicated him in schemes to line up the president's favourite family, the Guptas.

He has yet to do so. Instead he has decided to take up a post as "an honourable member" of parliament under very controversial circumstances.

It is not as if he was desperate for a job.

The father of three is well off with properties worth a total of R31.2-million in his name.

The largest and the most expensive of these are two farms, one in Limpopo and another in Pretoria, which were registered in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

His keen interest in property investment started at a young age. While many of his peers preferred the stock markets, he saw the buying of real estate as the best route to prosperity.

Why, then, would the ANC go to such lengths - including forcing an MP to resign his seat to make way for Molefe - to have him sworn in as a parliamentarian?

It is clear that this is part of a grand plan that may include his eventual elevation into the cabinet.

Those who have worked with him over the years say Molefe has always seen himself as a political animal and had ambitions to one day enter formal politics as an elected public representative.

story_article_left3

That it had to come on the back of a compromised process, with a huge cloud hanging over his head, has been described as a tragedy by one of Molefe's former associates who refused to be named.

"That the guy has the skills and is technically capable of doing the job is without doubt.

"But it is a tragedy that he goes in under circumstances where he is highly compromised.

"If he is appointed minister, he won't enjoy the respect and confidence of the markets.

"Even his peers, finance ministers from other countries, would always see him as a minister who is doing the bidding for someone else, and not his own man," the former associate said.

Another former associate said he did not believe his old friend liked what he saw in the mirror.

He still could not believe that Molefe, who was once viewed by Zuma's inner circle as "one of Mbeki's boys" who needed to be "isolated", was now close to the president.

"People like Brian should do some serious soul-searching. How is it that they have allowed themselves to be so compromised because of one man, one corrupt man?"

The former associate may not get a satisfying answer to his question any time soon.

The bright trailblazer who was once regarded as a lodestar for "a new generation of cadres" who were to use the state to improve people's lives, is now permanently associated with the Saxonwold shebeen.