ANC's attempted interference in Anglo chairperson selection is unacceptable

The attempt by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu to dictate to Anglo American who its next chairperson should be - even going as far as to dictate a list of names to the company - reveals the ANC for what it is: an invasive and destructive force, unable to distinguish the public from the private, the party from the state and the good of South Africa from its own damaging brand of racial nationalism.

At the next sitting of the portfolio committee, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will be calling for ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to appear before the committee to explain how it is that the ANC Minister of Mineral Resources sought to impose a list of ANC cadres on Anglo American. We will also submit parliamentary questions to Minister Shabangu's department, to ascertain whether Ms. Shabangu was instructed to intervene in Anglo's selection process.

As Secretary General of the ANC, Mantashe has made it quite clear he oversees the deployment of cadres; and as Shabangu is a loyal ANC cadre, subject to party discipline, the list may well have been sent on instruction from Luthuli House.

Minister Shabangu's public statements on this matter beggar belief. Her statement that "in line with government policy, we would prefer to have a black South African as the chairperson of Anglo" is very difficult to differentiate from what we became accustomed to hearing during Apartheid, when it was official government policy to see white South Africans receiving preferential treatment in business.

But Shabangu even went as far as to dictate a list of names - reported to include Popo Molefe, Valli Moosa, Cyril Ramaphosa and Jabu Moleketi, all of whom have served on the ANC's NEC.

There are three fundamental problems with all of this:

First, it is clear violation of rules on corporate governance. The shareholders of a company have a right to decide on who should manage the company. Shabangu's statement implies that shareholders' rights across the spectrum are no longer safe from political interference. This would serve as an initial step to ultimately facilitate the nationalisation of mines.

Second, it demonstrates that the ANC has absolutely no idea how investor confidence works. Apart from indulging the mad idea that South Africa nationalise its mines, the ruling party is now deploying its members to the private sector. The damage both these developments has already done no doubt runs into the millions of Rands, as those people looking for a secure investment now look elsewhere.

Third, it constitutes yet further evidence that the ANC has absolutely no idea of where its boundaries lie. It routinely conflates party and state and now has categorically failed to distinguish the difference between the private and public sectors. Its behaviour is an indictment, the result of rampant nationalism and poor judgement.

Statement issued by Hendrik Schmidt MP, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of mining, July 10 2009

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