How Lumka Oliphant's dismissal exposes rot in Ramaphosa’s 'New Dawn'
Opinion
The dismissal of Lumka Oliphant, the former chief director of communication in the Department of Social Development, is more than a simple personnel matter.
Image: Social development / X
THE dismissal of Lumka Oliphant, the former chief director of communication in the Department of Social Development, is more than a simple personnel matter.
It is a stark microcosm of the systemic corruption, political protectionism, and targeted silencing of whistleblowers that continues to thrive under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership. Her case, emerging just days ago, serves as a clarion call, revealing an administration that, despite its promises of a “New Dawn”, is enshrined in moral decay.
Oliphant’s dismissal, following her exposure of Minister Sisisi Tolashe’s R3 million New York trip, reveals a political system that punishes integrity and rewards loyalty. Oliphant’s account of a sustained “humiliation” campaign underscores a chilling reality for whistleblowers.
Her statement: “Many Black professionals have been purged and silenced because we fear for our lives,” connects her ordeal directly to the ultimate price paid by truth-tellers like Babita Deokaran, assassinated for exposing corruption under the Ramaphosa administration.
The silence of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) also underscores a painful truth: the party, under Ramaphosa, has become a diseased body, echoing the rotten state of Denmark in Halmet, where moral order has collapsed and foul deeds rise to the surface.
The silence of the ANC’s NEC is not merely complacency; it is complicity in the terror unleashed on whistleblowers and the systematic burial of the ANC’s own soul.
Lumka Oliphant’s case provides a damning, factual blueprint of how the ANC-led state now operates. Her detailed statement reveals a system that punishes integrity and rewards sycophancy. She was not dismissed for incompetence; the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) confirmed her department was one of the best-performing in government.
She was dismissed for refusing to endorse a questionable counteroffer for a SASSA chief executive, for raising alarms about an advisor with two different CVs, and for questioning the qualifications of the Minister’s personal assistant and chief of staff.
The Oliphant-Tolashe scandal is not an isolated incident. It fits a well-established pattern within the Ramaphosa administration where allies accused of corruption are shielded, while those who pose a threat are sidelined or assassinated.
The systematic persecution of whistleblowers such as Oliphant and the assassination of whistleblowers like Deokaran lead to one inescapable conclusion: South Africa under Ramaphosa has, in fact, reached the era of a mafia state. This is a criminal syndicate masquerading as a government, operating on principles of fear, loyalty, and impunity.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s case is a blueprint of this impunity. Just recently, before Oliphant’s dismissal, Mchunu, a key Ramaphosa ally and envisaged successor, was suspended following explosive allegations from KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Mchunu was accused of receiving payments from a corruption suspect and dismantling a police team investigating politically connected murders. However, instead of being fired, Mchunu was placed on “leave of absence” with a lengthy commission of inquiry established, a move critics labelled a “cop-out” and evidence of Ramaphosa’s “addiction” to inquiries to avoid decisive action. Meanwhile, the likes of Sisisi Tolashe remain in office, insulated from accountability by a system they control.
Ramaphosa’s appointment of former Gauteng Premier David Makhura, who presided over the Thembisa Hospital corruption scandal, the Life Esidimeni tragedy, and rampant PPE graft, as chair of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) sends an unambiguous message: failure and complicity are no barrier to career advancement in Ramaphosa's new dawn. This culture of impunity is the very antithesis of “Thuma Mina”, as was echoed by the late Hugh Masekela.
In all of this, a carefully peddled narrative has long been peddled, portraying Cyril Ramaphosa as Nelson Mandela’s chosen successor. Yet no credible evidence supports this claim, and his presidency actively refutes it. If Ramaphosa were truly Mandela’s successor, he would be a guardian of the ANC’s soul, the party founded in 1912 to liberate Africans from socio-economic injustice and founded by men of high integrity and high morals.
Instead, Ramaphosa embodies everything the founding fathers stood against. One can only imagine the profound anguish as Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme, George Montshioa, and Dr Walter Rabusana turn in their graves, witnessing their liberation project morph into a criminal cartel, captured by “comrade tsotsis” and oligarchic interests.
A leader too weakened by internal party factions and his own past scandals from the Phala Phala farm mystery to his relationship with his nephew, Thembisa hospital kingpin, Hangwani Maumela. Within the fragile Government of National Unity (GNU), this instinct for appeasement is magnified. Maintaining coalition stability seemingly requires protecting allies like Tolashe and Mchunu, even at the cost of the administration’s credibility.
Ramaphosa operates with a perceived invincibility, shielded by a pact with White Monopoly Capital that prioritises market stability over justice, rendering him seemingly untouchable. He presides over a necropolitics where the dead bodies of whistleblowers like Deokaran accumulate as collateral for this stability.
But let this be clear: no leader is untouchable. History’s immutable law is that all kingdoms, no matter how powerful, eventually collapse under the weight of their own corruption and betrayal of the people.
However, the day of reckoning is coming. It may not be today, but the anger is simmering. When it finally boils over, the protected corridors of power will offer no sanctuary.
Ramaphosa, you and your allies in the NEC will be forced to account for the grand theft of a nation’s potential, for the silenced voices, and for the lives lost to the very criminality you enabled. The cry of Oliphant will not end in vain; it is an echo of a gathering storm, and the people will eventually rise to reclaim the ANC, because power ultimately belongs to the people (Amandla Awethu!).
Consequently, as the ANC navigates an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, one must directly challenge its leadership: Ramaphosa and Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, do you not have a heart, as the demise of the movement that liberated our country happens on your watch?
* Phapano Phasha is the chairperson of The Centre for Alternative Political and Economic Thought.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.