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WHAT do Presidents Jacob Zuma and Paul Kruger have in common? Missing millions: but in Zuma’s case we aren’t even bothering to try and look for it.
There are 117 years between these two episodes, but there are some astonishing similarities. Before I am stoned in the literal sense on the town square for even suggesting this, let me give a bit of background.
Fleeing with the cash
As the English forces approached Pretoria in 1900, Paul Kruger, the then President of the South African Republic (Transvaal), left Pretoria by train and headed to Machadodorp. This was on the 29th of May.
Two days later, the government abandoned the capitol. The plan was to go through Mozambique and eventually to Europe, and to rally support for the Boer cause from there. Kruger received a rapturous reception in Marseilles, travelled onto The Netherlands and finally settled in Clarens, Switzerland.
But when Lord Milner peered into the state coffers a day or three after arriving in Pretoria, there was a large gaping hole where the gold should have been. Pretty similar to the gaping hole in the state budget revealed by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba two weeks ago. It would appear that gold to the value of £800 000 – £1.5m had disappeared along with Kruger and his government presumably on the train. That was an astonishingly large amount of money in those days.
Hiding the treasure
Let’s face it, if you were faced with a military takeover of your government, you are unlikely to leave the cash for the invaders, are you? History abounds with ingenious stories on how to stash the cash away from the enemy’s prying hands.
From hidden tunnels, to underground dungeons, to buried treasure in pigpens, to jewellery stashed in the seams of clothing, in hay carts, or slow siphoning of vast sums of cash from one bank account to another – the methods are ingenious and plenty.
When my great-grandmother and her family realised the British soldiers were approaching their farm in Heilbron, the only valuable thing they had was a set of China. So they buried it in the one place no-one was likely to look: deep under the dung heap. It was still there after the war when they eventually returned.
When a change of government – especially a sudden and violent one – looms, those formerly in power fleeing to safety seldom do so with just the clothes on their back. Not many former heads of state are ever spotted working as bus conductors or hotel porters in their new place of residence. They are usually living it up, but the exact source of the cash is seldom revealed.
But he was a man of God
But back to the missing Kruger millions. Some believed they were buried in the Lowveld somewhere between Machadodorp and Waterval-Onder. To this day people are still looking for it. I find that rather touching – the absolute faith that a man of God could not possibly have absconded with the lion’s share of the treasure.
Guys, if it was somewhere out there, I am pretty sure it would have been found by now. And if it is, I shall apologise profusely for having had little faith in a politician’s ability to differentiate between the state coffers and his own back pocket. But experience, and history, have taught me otherwise. I am willing to take this chance.
The story at the time was that it was buried somewhere to help the Boers in the war. I think it more likely to have found its way to Europe – possibly with the honourable intention of sending some of it back home, but you know how these things go. The road to hell, and all that….
We know where our stolen cash is
The telling difference between then and now is that now we are not even bothering to look for the cash. No search parties, no metal detectors, no scrutinising the archives. We know it’s gone – and we know where it’s gone, and we know how it got there. All we can do is to stare aghast at the paper trail, and listen to the sound of one man chuckling in the background.
But there is one major difference – Zuma isn’t leaving and those capturing the state are doing so not by stealth of night or by military force, but openly, and in broad daylight – with the help of the person whose main function should be to protect the state, no less. It’s like the burglar who doesn’t bother to leave the house after he has cleaned it out, but arrives with a U-Haul – to move in the rest of his stuff.
It’s one thing you have to give our country – we always have the ability to come up with a twist to the pattern of history.
So it is not completely impossible that some omie with a metal detector actually finds the missing Kruger millions stashed in a forgotten corner of some long abandoned pig pen in the district of Machadodorp. Maybe we can talk him into keeping it a secret and using it to help the poor. Because the government sure isn’t doing it.
- Susan Erasmus is a freelance writer. Views expressed are her own.
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