Also in the room when the Telkom CEO arrived was Zuma's predecessor and his newly minted deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, Oyama Mabandla, chairman of the soon-to-be-listed Vodacom Group and a woman identified only as Mohamed, said to be a lawyer representing the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Zuma went straight to the heart of the matter. He, Zuma, the country's new president, wanted the Vodacom deal cancelled. Telkom had sold its 15% stake in Vodacom to Vodafone for an estimated R22,5bn, thus handing control of Vodacom to the British cell phone giant. September protested: the deal had gone through and the cheque was already in the bank. What's more, Vodacom was to be listed on the JSE within a week.
Zuma was adamant. The deal couldn't go ahead, he insisted. Though former president Thabo Mbeki must have given the nod for negotiations to begin, Motlanthe was president when cabinet gave final approval for the deal. This time, with Zuma in the room, Motlanthe could make only perfunctory remarks. The matter could not be resolved. September said his good-byes and left.
The same ploy was tried on Vodacom and Pieter Uys, its newly appointed CEO, with new communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda joining the arm-twisting this time. Mabandla, in his last meeting as Vodacom board chairman, is said to have expressed some sympathy for Zuma's stance. But Vodacom, finally freed of Telkom's stifling embrace, was in no mood to look back.
Later that week, Nyanda informed the two companies that government would try a new tack: it would go to court. But it was Cosatu, with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) meekly in tow, which made an urgent application to the high court on a Sunday, the eve of the Vodacom listing, in a desperate attempt to stop the deal. Observers were stunned, especially by Icasa's volte-face. The authority had initially - and correctly - insisted that the deal did not require its approval. The rand wobbled. Curiously, government opposed the bid. The application was dismissed. It's now obvious Icasa was being dragged by the ear.
Cosatu's stated reason for trying to stop the deal was that jobs would be lost now that the two companies were going their separate ways, despite assurances to the contrary. But the other explanation was simply that the wrong crowd would benefit from the deal. The Elephant Consortium, made up of people close to Mbeki, acquired a R9bn stake in Telkom in 2005, with a generous helping from the Public Investment Corp. That was obviously too bitter a pill to swallow for the Zuma crowd.
Until now, though, Zuma's role in the matter had never been revealed. What does it tell us of his intentions? Was he simply helping a few friends and stitching up a few foes? Or does it point to an ideological inclination? The evidence so far points to an attempt to reverse some of Mbeki's economic policies. Justice minister Jeff Radebe informed a US court earlier this month that his government had changed its mind and would now support a lawsuit against American companies that allegedly had benefited from apartheid, such as General Motors and IBM.
And this week Nyanda seemed to pour cold water on the merger negotiations between MTN and Bharti. And Icasa has suddenly let it be known that it will hold hearings before the deal can go through.
Mbeki may have committed a few sins, but the handling of the economy is not one of them. His government did pretty well on that front. It's the only thing the ANC could boast about during the election campaign. So why throw the baby out with the bath water?
