Mathews Phosa in his book Phosa Witness to Power hints at giving the presidency of South Africa a shot in future

Reviewer: Giyani Baloi
Title: Phosa Witness to Power: A Political Memoir
Author: Mathews Phosa and Pieter Rootman.

It is a co-authored book by Nakedi Mathews Phosa himself and his advisor, friend, and business partner Pieter Rootman. It traces Mathews Phosa’s life from his childhood in Nelspruit now, Mbombela, where he was born in 1952 in Eastern Transvaal now Mpumalanga.

He started his schooling in Mpumalanga, then Orhovelani High school, before going to study law at Turflop University now, University of Limpopo.

That’s where he met the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa and Tshenuwani Farisani. Got involved in South African Student Congress (SASCO), Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) among many other politically active persons and organisations. After completing his law degree, he established a law firm with a friend in Mpumalanga. He started juggling law practice and activism. It didn’t take too long before the then Security Police’s roving eye started noticing his movements. That’s when he was forced to leave the law firm to his friend, leave his wife and a child, and skip the boarder to Mozambique to join the ANC in exile.

When he joined the ANC, he was sent to Germany for paramilitary training for seven months. After completing the training, he came back to join the Mkhonto weSizwe (MK), the then ANC’s military wing, and worked with the likes of Chris Hani, Jacob Zuma and others.

 When the ANC began its negotiation process with the apartheid government for a new political settlement in South Africa in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Mathews Phosa became one of the people who was at the forefront of the ANC negotiating team.

The ANC itself was a curious of mix of inxiles, exiles, educated, uneducated, and those with dark backgrounds.They were not people from the same ideological school of thought. It was not clear who knows what, and good at doing what. It was just learning on the job. As a result, the negotiating team kept changing.

Mathews Phosa was first at the forefront of the ANC negotiating team, then Thabo Mbeki, and then Cyril Ramaphosa. There was a lot of trust issues, including jealousy, competition and backstabbing, and it seems everyone wanted to claim Nelson Mandela for their own personal political advancement during the time.

Ultimately, the majority rule settlement was achieved in South Africa, and the first national democratic election was held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won the election, and Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected president of South Africa. Mathews Phosa was deployed in the Eastern Transvaal, now Mpumalanga to be the first Premier there in democratic South Africa.

Phosa talks in his book about how he worked very hard to market his province internationally when he was premier. How he had white friends and some as his advisors. How he could write poems in Afrikaans and how he started to have a fall out with Thabo Mbeki, then the ANC deputy president and eventually South African president after Nelson retired after serving one term as both ANC president and President of South Africa. He also talks about how he supported Jacob Zuma in the ANC Conference in Polokwane that toppled Thabo Mbeki and propelled Zuma to the highest office in South African politics. He talks about summing up the ANC National Executive Committee motion that recalled Thabo Mbeki immediately after his defeat by Jacob Zuma in Polokwane.

They say ,” If the lions cannot tell their own stories, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. It’s good that Mathews Phosa wrote his book, Witness to Power, and tries to point a finger at others.

 But I think more fingers are pointing at him. If you have a rough idea about how politics works in South Africa, like I do, you will easily pick a couple of grey areas, contradictions, half-truth, blame game and selectivity in what to talk about and not in the book.

For example, he blames Thabo Mbeki for running a parallel government. But, when he was Mpumalanga premier, you can tell that he was doing exactly the same, because he talks about going to countries like Germany, Russia, etc, to market or seek investments to his own province.

He admits in the book to having met the Gupta family in Saxonwold Johannesburg, where says he also saw Brian Molefe, the former embattled Eskom CEO as well as other ministers at compound. He also says in the book that he was asked by the Gupta brothers to open a joint bank account in Dubai for the ANC. The Gupta brothers would be partners to the account so they can assist the ANC to fundraise. But he tries to wash his hands by claiming that he doesn’t know what happened to that account because he never followed up on it thereafter or discussed anything about that account with the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC).

 Mathews Phosa writes in his memoirWitness to Power towards the end that, “I stand ready to make a contribution, again, to see the Rainbow Nation soar.”

With seemingly a leadership vacuum in the ANC leadership after the end of Ramaphosa’s term. Maybe he can try again. But is there anything new that Mathews Phosa can do now thathe failed to do when he was still young. This is anyone is guess.