South Africans have an enormous appetite to question the poor and trust the rich. When poor people demand better services, government asks if it’s a plot by foreign agents. When the gaudy bling-bling lifestyles of wealthy trust fund kids are presented on television shows such as Top Billing​ – the nation is supposed to be bedazzled by their fame and good fortune. Trust us they say, like trained politicians – our hands are clean, our intentions always noble – we work hard for our money. The truth, however, is a more complex beast.

So it is with Mr. Julius Malema, the President of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League whose appetite for consumerism and consumption appears to be no different from so many of his peers within the country’s white and black elite. News reports have suggested that his expenditure far outstrips his outcome – and far from being poor he has in part paid for a property in one of Johannesburg’s wealthiest neighbourhood in cash.

The difference of course, as starkly presented by a recent City Press newspaper investigation, is that he holds real political power and influence. For many donors there is the probability that he can help secure a government tender in his home province of Limpopo – while there is the possibility that an investment in Mr. Malema today may deliver handsome returns if he finds his way to high elected political office. Therefore it is sometimes speculated Mr. Malema may have conflicting interests when he calls for the nationalisation of mines: some suggest that he may receive money from mine-owners (or aspirant mine–owners) who will benefit from government buy-outs or the dilution of the current state of mine ownership – all at the expense of the public. One way for Mr. Malema to deal with such speculation decisively would be to open his books if he has nothing to hide as a public persona. However, like most South African political parties, notably both the ANC and DA, he prefers to keep the names of his private donors secret. Is this for fear of what the truth might reveal? In many ways Mr. Malema not only embodies but represents the problems of a society which uses cash as its compass and secrecy as its first line of defence.

How are we to trust the rich, powerful and politically connected minority when they continue to ascribe to a culture of secrecy that places a shield between them and the piercing gaze of the country’s poor majority? If Mr. Malema wished to challenge such interests he would not take lazy political pot shots at people such as South African billionaire Johan Rupert as he did last week. Suggesting that Mr. Rupert funded the apartheid regime and now wishes to unseat him through shares he owns in the City Press holding company.

Rather he should have revealed all his financial interests to the nation and challenged Mr. Rupert to do the same when it comes to his complex offshore holdings in Luxembourg and Switzerland. There are suggestions that this may reveal how the apartheid system of governance funded Mr. Rupert which helped make him one of the 500 richest people in the world today. This is another opportunity lost for Mr. Malema whose political agenda appears media headline driven. This at a time that the country would benefit much more from a hardline approach, rooted in the way that he handles his personal affairs, that emphasise a culture of accountability and pro-poor politics.

Sadly Mr. Malema has not yet proven that he will be a youth leader who will in any way break the mould of generations of wealthy South Africans who demand our trust and do little to earn it. The public has the right to know, without which our political and economic elite will remain accountable only to themselves.

An abridged version of this article appeared in the City Press on Sunday 31 July 2011

Written by Hennie van Vuuren, Director, ISS Cape Town Office