South Africa: Youthful Excess
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
EDITORIAL
10 October 2008
Posted to the web 10 October 2008
Johannesburg
THE ANC Youth League's decision to carry out an audit of its investment company Lembede comes not a moment too soon.
The league's business dealings and association with murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble have for many years tainted its leadership. The audit, to be conducted by reputable auditing firm Gobodo, will go a long way in explaining how former youth leaders became instant millionaires while the league itself was unable to pay its basic expenses. This year the league faced the ignominy of not being able to pay for its own conference.
The new leadership has restructured the board of Lembede and has promised to take action against the old guard and staffers if the audit exposes any wrongdoing.
Pule Mabe, the board's new chairman, admitted this week that the league had no idea what the true value of Lembede's investments was - thought to be about R120m - nor what exactly those investments included.
The new leadership's attempt to clean up the organisation's affairs is commendable. However, its intention will be meaningless if the audit is not conducted transparently and quickly. The findings of the audit should be shared with the public. Any attempt to hide from view any of the facts will only create suspicion and distrust of the new leadership.
The voting public deserves - no, is entitled - to know what investments Lembede made and what influenced those investments. How are we to know whether elected officials acted in our best interests and not in their own? The former leadership's links to Kebble too clearly illustrate the dangers of undisclosed political patronage.
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But what is more important is what the league does with the audit findings. Will the new leadership have the courage to act against those implicated in the report and restore transparency to Lembede's dealings? Will it resist the temptation to line their own pockets, and thus regain the moral high ground?
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Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
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