POLITICAL shenanigans can carry a high economic price tag, as President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has recently realised. His ‘redeployment’ of the respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene earlier this month, and his replacement by David Van Rooyen, an unknown backbencher, sent the economy into a tailspin. The rand fell by 2.5pc while the stock market lost $11.3 billion in a matter of hours. Fitch, an American rating firm, downgraded South African bonds to BBB-, a notch above junk status.

Within days, Zuma was forced to replace the hapless Rooyen by the experienced Pravin Gordhan, halting the threatened economic meltdown. Thus, within a period of one week, South Africa had the dubious distinction of having three finance ministers. So why did Zuma put his country through this wrenching and highly unpopular experience? The most plausible explanation doing the rounds, and one widely reported in the national media, is Nene’s stand-off with Dudu Myeni, chairperson of South African Airlines.

According to press reports, Myeni — who has no previous experience in the airline industry — wanted an Airbus leasing deal to go through a local broker. However, Nene — and now Gordhan — insisted that the transaction be conducted in a transparent manner that would cut out the nominated middleman, saving millions of dollars. Myeni is reported to be Zuma’s mistress, and was thus able to get his backing. Nene refused to bow to pressure, and was sacked. But such was the angry reaction to the step that Zuma finally had to give in and appoint Gordhan to appease his opponents and the markets.

The erratic and flamboyant Zuma is now the subject of a #Zumamustfall Twitter campaign. There is serious concern in his African National Congress that his leadership style is making the party a toxic brand. But thus far, the party’s leaders are standing by him, publicly at least. As one reader wrote in a letter to the Johannesburg Star, South Africans are already paying to maintain Zuma’s four wives in a new presidential palace. Must they also pay for his other pastimes?

For all this to go on in Africa’s most highly industrialised country is a matter of great embarrassment for white businessmen who deplore their president’s antics. In fact, there is more than a hint of racism in their disparaging remarks about “these people”. The reality is that after more than twenty years since apartheid was dismantled, there are many signs that South African society is still largely segregated. What has changed is that instead of colour, money now divides the country. Unsurprisingly, whites still control a major proportion of the economy, while political power rests largely with blacks.

This is evident in the large, glitzy shopping malls and the many smart restaurants that I have seen in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Here, the customers are almost invariably white — and, occasionally, Indian — while those serving them are black.

This income disparity has understandably led to soaring criminality across the country. Horror stories of isolated white farmers robbed and murdered abound. Urban crimes of mugging and violent break-ins are common. This has caused a booming market in security-related devices and services. Huge gated housing estates with electronic, fingerprint-operated gates have mushroomed outside Johannesburg. And while some rich blacks live there, too, they are mostly populated by whites.

After South Africa became free of apartheid and blacks became equal citizens, there was a fear among the whites that the country would go the way of Zimbabwe. As a result, the financial district of the commercial capital, Johannesburg, physically relocated to the suburbs. Banks, corporate headquarters and other large companies moved out of the city centre into new, gleaming complexes on the outskirts of the city. They were followed by white residents who created the new housing estates. All of them are guarded by armed security, as well as by CCTV cameras and electric fences and razor wire. By contrast, large sections of downtown Johannesburg have been allowed to fall into decay, becoming large slums.

And while white South Africans grumble about “these people”, they live comfortably, often served by domestic staff. Interestingly, the latter often come from Zimbabwe, pushed out by the antics of another erratic leader, Robert Mugabe. The truth is that while many charismatic anti-colonial freedom fighters may have been effective in freeing their countries of colonial rule, they proved to be very poor managers of the economies of their newly independent states.

For visitors, the weak rand means a cheap holiday. In many respects, South Africa has much to offer: unmatched nature parks full of wild animals; a long and lovely coastline; numerous sporting facilities; excellent hotels and restaurants; and superb wines. Johannesburg alone boasts of 26 large and well-stocked shopping malls with every brand under the sun.

Despite being in a consumerist paradise, a visit to the Apartheid Museum soon brings even the most insensitive tourist down to earth. The infamous ‘Pass Laws’ that restricted blacks and other non-whites to their settlements were a brutal assertion of white superiority and separateness. District Six, a vibrant mixed community of blacks and coloureds in Cape Town, was bulldozed and its residents resettled to make way for whites. Protesters were jailed, beaten and shot. It took many years of activism led by the ANC, as well as an international boycott, for the barriers of racism to fall.

However, as we have noted, the end of institutionalised segregation has not eliminated the racial divide. Although successive governments since the end of apartheid have tried to increase opportunities for blacks, years of third-rate education and oppression are not erased overnight. Quotas and reverse discrimination in the workplace have not closed the large gap between white and black achievement.

And yet South Africa is endowed with fertile land, many natural resources and a young population. All that’s missing is good governance. Sound familiar?

Twitter: @irfan_husain

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2015