Mzwanele Manyi

While director-general, Manyi remained in office as BMF president. There were reports that some BMF members were discontented with his leadership, particularly those who believed that the BMF's non-partisan stance was incompatible with Manyi's support for the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC):[22][23] he had openly endorsed the party head of the general election earlier that year.[24] Manyi was not concerned about being too close to the governing party, saying, "We want government to give the forum a call before they move [on policy] and say 'How must we do this?' We want to influence policy. It is not the forum's job to criticise government; we've got the DA [the official opposition] to do that".[25]

At the BMF's annual general meeting in Midrand in October 2009, the other leadership contender – BMF's outgoing deputy president, Shell SA's Bonang Mohale – withdrew from the contest, and Manyi was re-elected to a second three-year term as BMF president.[26] After his re-election, Manyi said that his newly elected deputy, Thembakazi Mnyaka, would "carry the can" for the BMF and become its "face", while he would "play a supporting role".[25] However, Manyi remained prominent in the organisation: in 2010, for example, he was viewed as central to BMF's involvement in leadership elections at Business Unity South Africa (Busa), in which BMF supported Sandile Zungu over the winning candidate, Futhi Mtoba, whose election BMF subsequently described as "a blow against transformation".[27][25]

Thus Manyi's position at the head of BMF continued to cause tension. In May 2010, the Sunday Independent reported that Minister Mdladlana had given Manyi an ultimatum, telling him that he would have to choose between his government job and his BMF office,[25] though Mdladlana later denied the reports.[28] Manyi said that there was no reason that he should renounce his BMF office, because he had already held it when he was appointed to his government position.[29] In September 2010, three former presidents of BMF held a press conference at which they called for Manyi's removal from office, primarily because of his closeness to government and the ANC but also because of his "frightening brand of arrogance, amateurism and lack of logic".[30] The BMF's annual general meeting declined to remove Manyi but appointed a panel to consider his fitness to hold office.[31]

In April 2010, at a BMF symposium attended by President Zuma,[32] Manyi argued that the South African Constitution "does not support the transformation agenda in this country", pointing in particular to several provisions which he believed required reconsideration. One was the property rights clause, which he said made land expropriation exorbitantly expensive and therefore obstructed land reform. Another was the clause guaranteeing freedom of expression, which Manyi suggested the South African media had "taken a tad too far",[32] asking, "Why is it that media can have a field day with impunity, railroading the office of the president. Why is it so easy?".[33][34] A Sunday Times editorial described his remarks as "baffling" and "unfortunate".[35]

Also in the first half of 2010, there was a minor diplomatic incident when the Norwegian Ambassador to South Africa, Tor Christian-Hildan, contacted the South African government to express concerns about Manyi's conduct during an official meeting. At the meeting, held in Pretoria in March 2010, Manyi, Christian-Hildan, and two other diplomats had discussed Norway's participation in job-creation initiatives in South Africa. Christian-Hildan did not publicly elaborate on what had occurred during the meeting, except to say that, "There were certain things discussed and the way in which they were brought up in that meeting that we did not appreciate".[29] Christian-Hildan subsequently contacted Foreign Affairs Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to request a meeting with Minister Mdladlana about Manyi's conduct. Indeed, the Mail & Guardian reported in June that the embassy had contacted Mdadlana directly first, but later had sent a diplomatic note to Nkoana-Mashabane after Mdladlana failed to act; Mdladlana's apparent hesitation to take action against Manyi was viewed as a reflection of his "political clout".[36]

When asked about the March meeting, Manyi said that he had briefed the diplomats about South Africa's BEE policies, explaining, "As the discussion flowed, the issue came up of challenges Norwegians were having with BEE. This is why I offered to give them a presentation about BEE and how it works".[29] The Mail & Guardian subsequently published unconfirmed reports that, in fact, the discussion of BEE policies had come about in the course of an attempt by Manyi to convince the diplomats that the Norwegian government should partner with black South African businessmen, rather than with the South African government, in its job-creation initiative.[36] The opposition DA said that such a situation was a clear indication that Manyi's dual roles in the government and BMF had given rise to a conflict of interest.[37]

Over a year later, by which time Manyi had left the Department of Labour, the DA's conclusion was fundamentally upheld by the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, who investigated a related complaint against Manyi. According to Madonsela's report, which was published in 2011 and titled To be or not to be in conflict, Manyi had failed to disclose his conflict of interest – arising from his dual roles in government and the BMF – and had failed to manage that conflict appropriately.[38] Among other things, Madonsela said that, in his meeting with the Norwegian diplomats, Manyi had offered the delegation the opportunity to pay the BMF to receive training on BEE.[39] Years later, Manyi continued to maintain that he had not advocated for private business interests in his meeting with the Norwegians, but instead had offered pro bono advice on BEE to the ambassador, who "took the wrong end of this offer to assist him".[40]

In early June 2010, the Ministry of Labour announced that Manyi had been suspended from his position in the department, although it did not explain why.[29] The move was widely linked to the Norwegian complaint against him,[29] although the Sunday Times claimed – in a report strongly denied by Minister Mdladlana – that he had been suspended after a KPMG forensic audit unearthed "massive fraud and corruption" in the Department of Labour.[41]

The sequence of events after Manyi's suspension remains a subject of debate. Manyi did not return to the office, nor did he undergo disciplinary proceedings,[42] before he was transferred to a new post in February 2011 (see below), but it was not clear what his employment status was when he was transferred.[43] In later years, Manyi maintained that he was never dismissed and remained a salaried employee under precautionary suspension,[43] but at the time, he refused to comment on how and when he had left the Department of Labour.[44] The confusion arose because, in November 2010, shortly after Minister Mdladlana was himself fired by President Zuma, Mdladlana had told the Saturday Star that Manyi had been fired for insubordination.[45] This claim was not confirmed by government, and Richard Baloyi, then the Minister of Public Service and Administration, said in 2011 that Mdladlana had withdrawn the disciplinary charges against Manyi. However, the Mail & Guardian reported that the charges had been withdrawn only because Mdladlana had seen an opportunity to dismiss Manyi without a disciplinary hearing.[42] According to the Mail & Guardian's sources, Manyi's new appointment in 2011 was the Zuma administration's attempt to find a "political solution" to Manyi's labour dispute by moving him to a new department.[42][44] When this reshuffle took place, Manyi was succeeded as labour director-general by Nkosinathi Nhleko.[46]

One of the biggest controversies of Manyi's tenure began in late February 2011, less than a month after his appointment to GCIS. Amid a broader political row about employment equity legislation, the trade union Solidarity drew attention to remarks that Manyi had made while still labour director-general during a March 2010 television appearance on KykNet's Robinson Regstreeks.[50] In the video clip, which Solidarity posted on YouTube, Manyi responded to concerns that proposed amendments to employment equity laws, which would set employment equity targets at a uniform level across all nine provinces, would systematically disadvantage South Africa's Coloured population, the overwhelming majority of whom lived in just two provinces (the Western Cape and Northern Cape). Manyi suggested that Coloured people could overcome this difficulty by moving to the provinces where Coloured people were under-represented, because businesses in those provinces would have a high demand for Coloured workers to meet employment equity quotas.[50] In the widely reproduced segment of the interview, Manyi said:

I think it's very important for coloured people in this country to understand that South Africa belongs to them in totality not just the Western Cape. So this over-concentration of coloureds in the Western Cape is not working for them. They should spread in the rest of the country... so they must stop this over-concentration situation because they are in over-supply where they are so you must look into the country and see where you can meet the supply.[51]

The opposition Freedom Front Plus called for Manyi to be fired,[52] as did the South African Municipal Workers' Union.[53] The ANC's own Tripartite Alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), called for an investigation of Manyi's conduct, which it said "casts serious aspersions on his suitability for senior public office".[54] The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said that Manyi's remarks implied that government's employment equity policy amounted to "an attempt at social engineering on a scale not seen since the darkest days of apartheid" and amounted to "crude racism".[51] In addition, a week later, the DA fuelled the controversy by releasing another video clip of Manyi, this time suggesting in February 2010 that Indians had "bargained their way to the top".[54]

On the secondary remarks about Indians, Manyi said that he would not apologise, because "it was said on a lighter note" in jest.[54] On the remarks about Coloureds, he said:

This was the BMF position. I have no feelings on any issue. I speak as BMF chairman or as the government spokesman. This has nothing to do with me personally. I have a role to play as messenger. I am either for the BMF or the government. This has nothing to do with Jimmy Manyi. Why is this being personalised?[51]

However, Manyi's deputy at GCIS, Vusi Mona, apologised on Mani's behalf, saying that Manyi wished to apologise unreservedly to those who had been offended by his remarks. However, Mona, also said that, "Concern has to be expressed about the fact that this issue has resurfaced, seemingly as part of a vendetta against Mr Manyi, who was recently appointed as government spokesperson – a Cabinet decision that many have sought to undermine".[55] Similarly, although the ANC distanced itself from Manyi's "disturbing" remarks, which it said were incongruent with the non-racialism of the Freedom Charter,[52] the party's secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, rejected calls for Manyi's dismissal, describing Manyi as an agent of transformation and saying, "People who make calls to fire Jimmy Manyi have a hatred for change. Change is painful".[56] The Mail & Guardian again suggested that Manyi was protected by his staunch support for Zuma, describing him as having "the confidence of a man who knows he has the president behind him".[14]

The saga became memorable partly because of the ferocious response of Trevor Manuel, a struggle stalwart then serving as a Minister in the Presidency, who published an open letter in the Mercury in which he accused Manyi of being "a racist in the mould of H. F. Verwoerd".[57][58] Other ANC associates defended Manuel and expressed similar sentiments, with Zwelinzima Vavi of Cosatu agreeing that Manyi's remarks were "absolutely racist" and "a most unfortunate statement ever to be made in a democracy"; Kader Asmal released a statement which urged that, "Minister Manuel deserves the support and praise of all right-thinking South Africans. The choice facing us is very clear: do we stand behind the humane and generous values of Minister Manuel, or do we, by staying silent, lend our support to the mischievous and dangerous notions of Mr Manyi."[59] Allan Boesak wrote his own ferocious open letter to Manyi in the Rapport, accusing Manyi of poisoning people's minds.[60]

However, the ANC Youth League professed itself "disturbed" by Manuel's letter, saying, "We now do not know who Trevor Manuel represents, because his remarks falls squarely into the political agenda of right-wing political forces opposed to the ANC".[62] Manuel's letter also drew a response from Paul Ngobeni, who, writing in the Sunday Independent, called for Manuel to be fired. Ngobeni accused Manuel of being "a gangster of the worst kind", of acting as though he was "the king of Coloured people", and of seeking to undermine President Zuma and his cabinet through his "cowardly, unwarranted and racist attacks on Manyi".[63] Ngobeni was subsequently suspended from his position as legal adviser to Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who distanced herself from his letter and "all its contents",[64] though he returned to work in July.[65]

Asked about the saga two years later, Manyi said, "If such a honourable man such as Jesus Christ, who brought good news and salvation, was harmed very viciously on the cross, who am I?"[66] He maintained that his remarks about Coloureds had been "grossly misrepresented" and said that the response of academics and analysts, who had criticised him in the media without taking the time to understand his view, had led him to "los[e] all respect for these so-called experts".[66]

Later in March 2011, the BMF announced that, at Manyi's request, deputy president Tembakazi Mnyaka would take over most of Manyi's BMF responsibilities, including speaking for the organisation in public. The forum said that this would allow Manyi to concentrate on his new government responsibilities, as well as help prepare for a smooth leadership transition when Manyi's BMF term ended in October 2012.[67]

However, the remainder of his term at BMF provided further minor controversies. The BMF once again became involved in Busa's governance:[68] in mid-2011, Beeld reported that Manyi had arrived uninvited at a meeting of Busa management to insist that BMF should have a say in the appointment of Busa's new CEO,[69] though Busa said that the meeting had been "fully procedural".[70] In addition, in March the next year, GCIS staff complained to the Mail & Guardian that Manyi had hired several BMF associates to senior positions in the agency.[71]

In late March 2011, Manyi told City Press that the government would launch its own newspaper, a revamped version of the existing government magazine, Vuk'uzenzele, which was currently published every two months. Manyi said that the GCIS would publish the newspaper monthly from April and planned to ramp up to fortnightly publication within a year.[72] With plans for print-run of between 1.7 million and two million copies, Vuk'unzenzele would have the largest circulation of any newspaper in the country, would be free to all residents, and would be published in all 11 official languages.[72] Edited by a GCIS official, the newspaper would, according to Manyi, solve the problem whereby government was forced to abdicate its public communication responsibilities to commercial editorial discretion. Manyi said, "The media is censoring a lot of government information. Niyasivusa ukuba sizenzele [Xhosa for "You are rousing us to do things ourselves"]."[72] Indeed, he said that Vuk'unzenzele could become a daily newspaper if the commercial media continued to "censor" the government.[72]

Manyi's announcement drew criticism from multiple quarters. Corné Mulder, leader of the opposition Freedom Front Plus, accused GCIS of abusing its power and infringing on media freedom by effectively threatening to publish ANC "party-political propaganda" using public funds.[73] The South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) was highly aggrieved by Manyi's accusation of censorship, with deputy chairperson Raymond Louw challenging Manyi to provide specific examples of censored information.[74]

In June 2011, weeks after announcing the Vuk'unzenzele initiative and still in his first six months in office, Manyi announced that cabinet had resolved to centralise all government media buying under GCIS. The implication was that GCIS would control the entirety of government's R1-billion advertising budget, hitherto dispersed across the different departments. Manyi said that centralisation would allow GCIS to "monitor and enforce adherence to the government brand" and to realise economies of scale, directing the advertising budget to media outlets where the government would get the most "bang for its buck".[75][76] The same week, he announced that GCIS, "forced" to find alternative ways of communicating government's message, was planning to procure substantial television airtime for national government ministers to inform the public about their programmes.[77]

Although they pointed out that government advertising was a relatively minor component of overall advertising revenues, news editors were furious with what SANEF described as an unconstitutional attempt to coerce the independent press into giving favourable coverage to government,[76][78] tantamount to "bribery" or economic sanctions.[75] Manyi reversed the accusation of blackmail on the media outlets, saying, "If the press takes offence, it shows all they are interested in is government money... The media is saying: 'Government, you can make all the press statements you want, but if you don't pay us we won't carry these.'"[78] As the centralisation process was rolled out in 2012, DA leader Mmusi Maimane accused of Manyi of assembling a "propaganda machine" and of seeking "to shield the government's advertising expenditure from public scrutiny".[79][80]

A major feature of Manyi's tenure at GCIS was his increasingly poor relations with the press. In mid-2011, the Sunday Times advised Manyi, "you should not accept a job as cabinet's spokesman if you hate dealing with the press",[81] while a Mail & Guardian editorial said that Manyi "is increasingly reminding me of a mash-up of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and the movie This Is Spinal Tap... Because there seems to be a desire, à la the Spinal Tap amplifier that has a volume knob that goes up to 11, to ramp up the vitriol and doublespeak when it comes to portraying 'the media' in South Africa".[82] Tensions peaked in June 2011, in the aftermath of Manyi's announcement about the restructuring of advertising spend and also amid a controversy about the Secrecy Bill. A meeting between SANEF and a GCIS delegation in mid-June ended in deadlock.[83]

In this context, appearing on Radio 702 on 21 June, Manyi launched a personal attack on SANEF's respected chairperson, Mondli Makhanya of Avusa Media, whom he accused of fostering anti-government hostility among journalists through his "cartel-like tendencies".[84] In response, Makhanya said that Manyi was personally responsible for rapidly deteriorating relations between the media and the state, which he said had not been so bad "even in the days of [former minister] Essop Pahad".[83] SANEF requested an urgent meeting with Manyi's boss, Minister Chabane, to discuss GCIS–press relations, which Makhanya said were "headed for rock bottom".[83] The National Press Club supported SANEF, saying, "The media fraternity is extremely concerned about Manyi's hostility", and called for intervention "at the highest level".[83] Manyi said that the problem long predated his arrival at GCIS.[85]

In February 2012, articulating the government's position on Gauteng's highly unpopular e-tolls, Manyi told the public, "This is not just a bad dream; it's a reality, it's going to happen. No one should have any illusion whatsoever that this thing is going to go away. It's a fact of life and it's going to happen".[86] He was long remembered for this remark,[66][87][88][89] which critics said exemplified his abrasive communications style.[90] In April 2012, as Cosatu promised the "mother of all protests" against the tolls, Manyi explained, "the whole process is quite simply a roll out of democracy".[91]

Manyi continued at the head of GCIS until mid-2012, and in January of that year, he was additionally appointed by Zuma to a three-year term on the five-person board of the Media Development and Diversity Agency.[92] However, in June, the Mail & Guardian reported that Manyi's three-year contract as director-general – counted as having begun in 2009 when he entered the Department of Labour – would not be renewed when it expired in August.[90]

On 27 August 2012, the expiry of Manyi's contract was formally announced, and he departed the GCIS office.[93] The Mail & Guardian had reported earlier that week that an ambitious proposal by Manyi for organisational restructuring had been blocked by the National Treasury and Ministry in the Presidency.[94]

Two EFF members carry a placard depicting Atul Gupta at a Zuma Must Fall protest in Cape Town, April 2017.

Long after Manyi left GCIS, his tenure in the department – less than two years in duration – remained controversial. In later years, GCIS was identified as a possible site of state capture by the controversial Gupta family, who were alleged to have acquired undue influence over the Zuma administration. Manyi, who went on to become an employee and prominent defender of the Guptas, was implicated in several respects (see below), but his tenure at GCIS, in particular, was investigated by the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture (colloquially the Zondo Commission). Established in 2018, the commission's terms of reference included an instruction to investigate irregularities in the award of government advertising contracts to the New Age, the government-friendly Gupta-owned newspaper established in 2010.[95]

One central point of discussion was the circumstances under which Manyi had entered GCIS in 2011, unseating his respected predecessor, Themba Maseko, who later blew the whistle on state capture. In July 2019, former President Zuma told the Zondo Commission that Maseko had been removed because of a conflict between him and former Minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane, who had died in 2015. Maseko accused Zuma of lying, and he was supported by commission chairperson Raymond Zondo, who observed that Chabane had given Maseko an extremely high performance score (114%) shortly before Maseko was removed.[96] Instead, Maseko said that he had been fired on Zuma's instructions because he had refused to help channel government's advertising spend to the New Age.[96][97] In addition, GCIS deputy director-general Phumla Williams testified that the transition from Maseko's leadership to Manyi's leadership was the most rapid she had ever witnessed in government, with Manyi asking to be introduced to his new staff before Maseko had even moved out of his former office.[98]

It was therefore put to Manyi at the commission that he had been installed at GCIS on the expectation that he, unlike Maseko, would be willing to channel advertising spend to the New Age.[40] The commission heard evidence that the New Age had received a disproportionately large share of government advertising contracts, relative to its circulation; in the 2011/2012 financial year, it had received R8.7 million from government, while three major newspapers – the City Press, the Star, and the Sunday Times – had received less than R200,000 apiece.[99] Williams additionally testified that Manyi had changed GCIS's media procurement processes, requiring that he, rather than the department's bid adjudication committee, would sign off on tender processing, and that both the media-buying division and the internal audit unit would report directly to him.[100]

During his testimony to the Zondo Commission in 2018 and 2019, Manyi contradicted these claims. He said that he had dismantled the bid committee and sidelined Williams in the oversight of internal audit precisely because Williams and the bid committee had been implicated in procurement irregularities.[101] He also questioned the commission's approach, saying that he could not speculate about why he had been hired at GCIS and arguing, "I was a pawn in the process. Why are you calling a pawn? Why don't you call the people who were playing the chess?"[40] He challenged the commission to broaden the scope of its investigations, contending "that actually there has never been a time in which the state has not been captured"; he suggested that the capture of the state by white monopoly capital predated the Gupta empire and in fact had led to the downfall of the Gupta empire.[95] By then, Manyi was in fact the owner of the defunct New Age (see below), and he argued that the newspaper, quite contrary to being an instrument of state capture, had threatened the interests of white media monopolists, who, in collaboration with the National Treasury, had created "this monster called the Guptas" as a diversionary narrative.[95]

The Zondo Commission did not accept Manyi's argument. In the first instalment of its final report, published in January 2022, the commission said that Manyi's installation at GCIS had been one of the earliest acts of state capture by the Guptas.[102] It said that Manyi had "co-operated with the Guptas" and had not been able to justify GCIS's disproportionate advertising spend on the New Age. Manyi personally was named as a "facilitator" of state capture, while GCIS under his leadership was labelled an "enabler" of state capture.[103]

In a response, Manyi said that the commission's conclusions were "rubbish" and were not substantiated by evidence. He said that he was being persecuted for his new job as an employee of former president Zuma (see below): "My real crime is that I am the spokesperson of the most-hated person, Zuma".[104]

In August 2013, the Gupta brothers launched ANN7, a joint venture between their Oakbay Investments and India's Essel Media. Later the same month, ANN7 announced that Manyi would host a weekly interview show, Straight Talk, on the channel, airing on Saturday afternoons in direct competition with other channels' sports offerings.[66] The tagline of the show was "No comment is not an option".[106] Manyi said that ANN7 had "headhunted" him: "They were looking for someone fresh and bold who is able to deal with different and difficult issues."[66] However, in 2018, former ANN7 editor Rajesh Sundaram claimed in his tell-all book that Manyi had been hired as a presenter at the suggestion of President Zuma, despite having "failed miserably" during his interview for the position.[107]

During and after his employment at ANN7, Manyi frequently defended the Gupta brothers in the press.[3][4] Ferial Haffajee, while admiring Manyi as "an architect of modern [black economic] empowerment laws" and "an eloquent spokesperson for empowerment", said that he was "clearly a Gupta lieutenant or stooge";[108] Palesa Morudu said that his "main occupation seems to be acting as a shill for the Guptas".[109] In 2017, the Gupta Leaks revealed that Manyi, in 2014, had sent his own CV and that of a former colleague, Xoliswa Mpongoshe, to the Guptas, apparently with the expectation that the family would secure employment for them, according to Mpongoshe probably on the board of a parastatal.[110][111] Manyi said he had no recollection of the emails[110] and later told CapeTalk that there was nothing untoward about them.[112]

In May 2013, Manyi was appointed as a senior manager at Rand Water, a public water utility, with responsibility for strategy.[87] In July 2014, he was additionally appointed as a member of the National Communications Task Team, an advisory panel established by Faith Muthambi, then the Minister of Communications.[113][114] He also remained a board member at the Media Development and Diversity Agency until October 2014,[115] when he was appointed as a special adviser to Minister Muthambi.[116] He held the ministry position simultaneously with the Rand Water post.[117] His departure from the communications ministry was revealed belatedly in October 2016: he had recently defended the SABC's Hlaudi Motsoeneng, following reports that Motsoeneng had lied about his qualifications, and Muthambi's office released a statement distancing itself from Manyi's remarks and saying that "Manyi is no longer an advisor to the Minister of Communications and therefore does not speak on behalf of the Ministry".[118]

In November 2017, a week after the Sunday Times reported that Manyi had sent his CV to the Guptas, former Minister of Public Service and Administration Ngoako Ramatlhodi told the same newspaper that he had blocked an attempt by Mosebenzi Zwane, a Gupta-linked minister, to have Manyi hired as director-general in the Department of Mineral Resources in 2016.[119] Ramtlhodi later told the Zondo Commission that he believed he had been dismissed from the cabinet in early 2017 partly because of his refusal to sign off on Manyi's hiring.[120]

In 2013, Manyi became the founding president of a new organisation, the Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF). Openly affiliated to the ANC – though purportedly independent of the party – the PPF's mission was to represent professionals and intellectuals who supported the ANC's agenda and policies, with its founding secretary-general, Siphile Buthelezi, explaining, "we are the beneficiaries of the ANC-led government policies and now it is time to plough back".[121] In 2017, following a parliamentary question from the DA's David Maynier, the government disclosed that two parastatals, Eskom and Transnet, had provided R840,000 in donations to the PPF.[122]

From his PPF platform, Manyi remained an outspoken advocate for so-called radical economic transformation. In January 2017, Manyi announced that the PPF was "not convinced" about the merits of constitutional democracy and supported a "discussion" about a possible transition to pure majoritarian democracy under parliamentary sovereignty. Controversially, Manyi argued that the South African Constitution had been introduced during the post-apartheid transition by the Afrikaner Broederbond, who benefitted from constitutional democracy because it limited the democratic government's ability to effect structural economic change.[123] He reprised this argument on several occasions,[124][125] and additionally argued in March 2017 that ANC policies, including the Public Finance Management system, had been "infiltrated" and now served white monopoly capital.[126] In one example derided by columnists,[109][127] Manyi criticised a 2017 tax increase for South Africa's top earners (about 105,000 people), saying that a heavy income tax on earnings above R1.5 million favoured white monopoly capital and disadvantaged the black middle class.[128]

Manyi also spearheaded the PPF's vociferous opposition to the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill, which updated anti-money laundering measures to meet international standards. Manyi argued that the bill was prejudicial to the ANC's black donors, who he said would be persecuted as politically exposed persons. He warned that the PPF was "dangerous", would "enslave" businesspeople, and would ensure that the ANC ended up "broke as hell".[129][130] The ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa distanced the party from the PPF's stance, clarifying that the party did not accept laundered donations.[131]

On at least one occasion, the PPF distanced itself from views expressed by its president. In late April 2017, Manyi told the press that he was unbothered by the public perception that he was a Gupta associate, because the Guptas had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing, except the crime of challenging the dominance of white monopoly capital.[112] In Manyi's words, "I am not Guptaphobic, and I would like people to be cured of that disease".[132] The PPF released a statement saying that the organisation did not share Manyi's diagnosis of Guptaphobia and was vehemently opposed to any individuals or organisations who had been involved in state capture.[133]

Manyi was also active in the Black Business Council (BBC), and in late September 2016 he was elected as the council's head of policy, serving under BBC president Danisa Baloyi.[134] In December of that year, the Sunday Times published reports, denied by Manyi, that he had been rebuffed by the BBC's membership committee after he proposed that the Guptas' Oakbay Resources would provide a R5-million donation in exchange for corporate membership of the council.[135]

Manyi remained in the policy role for only six months, stepping down in late March 2017. Though the Business Day reported that he had been forced to resign due to his association with the Guptas,[136] Manyi said that he was leaving to focus on his other responsibilities, especially assisting with the launch of the PPF's youth and student wings.[137] He remained a member of the BBC national council in his capacity as a PPF representative.[137]

Finally, in August 2016, Manyi founded the Mzwanele Manyi Decolonisation Foundation.[138] Soon after its establishment, the foundation lodged a flurry of formal complaints against public figures generally viewed as hostile to the Guptas. Among other things, the foundation asked the Public Protector to investigate three former finance ministers – Trevor Manuel, Pravin Gordhan and Nhlanhla Nene – for dereliction of duty in connection with the approval of dodgy tenders for the construction of the Medupi and Kusile power stations.[139] He also said he would lodge complaints against AngloGold Ashanti and its chairman, Sipho Pityana, in response to Pityana's call for business leaders to take a stand against the ANC and demand Zuma's removal from office.[140]

In March 2017, when the Sunday Times published its exposé of a Gupta-aligned fake news campaign coordinated by British firm Bell Pottinger, the newspaper claimed to have seen leaked internal documents proving that Manyi's Decolonisation Foundation, as well as Andile Mngxitama's Black First Land First, had been established or funded by Bell Pottinger as part of the campaign.[141][142] In a follow-up report, the Sunday Times labelled Manyi as one of the "real-life commanders of the Guptas' fake news army", claiming that Manyi's Twitter account had been one of the 19 authentic accounts which, alongside a network of bot accounts, had amplified pro-Zuma and pro-Gupta social media campaigns.[143] Manyi denied any direct links to[141] or funding from[144] Bell Pottinger.

On 21 August 2017, the Guptas' Oakbay Investments announced that it had sold both of its media units – Infinity Media, which operated broadcaster ANN7, and TNA Media, which operated newspaper the New Age – to Lodidox, a company in which Manyi was the sole shareholder.[145] The R450-million acquisition was sponsored by Oakbay through a vendor-financing agreement.[146][147] The deal created a major stir, especially because of the financing arrangement and because the price – R300 million for ANN7 and R150 million for the New Age – was widely viewed as inflated. Some observers suggested that Manyi had been installed to front for the Guptas, either to make the media companies more attractive clients to banks[148] – as related bank accounts had recently been closed in the aftermath of the state capture scandal – or to facilitate money laundering.[149] Manyi strongly denied these suggestions.[4]

Manyi said that the media companies would retain their earlier strategy of pursuing advertising business with the state, promising, "I'll be knocking on government doors unapologetically because they talk about radical economic transformation, so I'll be saying: 'Stay true to your word'."[4] In April 2018, he announced a "strategic decision" to distance the companies from their former owners through rebranding, with ANN7 renamed Afro Worldview and the New Age renamed Afro Voice; he also said that he had fully repaid his vendor debt to Oakbay Investments, after the amount had been lowered through renegotiations.[150] ANN7 continued to bid for a new broadcasting contract, after Multichoice said that it would drop the channel in August 2018 due to the channel's involvement in "controversies".[151]

In June 2018, Afro Voice staff told the press that the newspaper had ceased production,[152][153] and in July, Manyi applied to liquidate the newspaper.[154] In court papers, Manyi said that the newspaper's revenues had declined to the cancellation of state contracts and negative perceptions of the Guptas, while operations had been negatively affected by the collapse of VBS Mutual Bank, the custodian of the newspaper's operational bank accounts.[154] Afro Worldview ceased to air the following month; Manyi refused to comment "on Afro Worldview business on any issue whatsoever".[155]

In June 2021, former President Zuma's daughter, Dudu Zuma-Sambudla, announced that Manyi had been appointed as official spokesman to her father and his foundation, the Jacob G. Zuma Foundation.[156] Zuma had been removed from the presidency in 2018 and was facing revived corruption charges, and Manyi was to provide Zuma's "side of the story" in the trial and all other matters.[157][158]

Formerly a member of the governing African National Congress (ANC), Manyi announced in January 2019 that he would join the African Transformation Movement (ATM), a party founded in 2018 that became closely associated with supporters of Zuma and of so-called radical economic transformation.[159] At the press conference where he announced his decision, Manyi said that the ANC was "sabotaging" itself, particularly in its apparent lack of will to implement land expropriation without compensation and other transformative measures.[160] ATM leader Vuyolwethu Zungula said that the party had no objection to Manyi's history, saying:

We want to transform society. We can't just be working with the most clean people. We can't reject a person from wanting to take part in developing South Africa... [Manyi's] character has changed, his language has changed, because the work of the ATM is to transform minds. It can best be seen in Manyi.[161]

Manyi's recruitment to the ATM followed an abortive attempt to establish his own movement, the All Africa Decolonisation Congress (AADC), founded in December 2018. The day after he announced that he was joining the ATM, the AADC released a statement saying that it felt it had to "distance ourselves from Mzwanele Jimmy Manyi and all his fraudulent activities", especially because Manyi intended for the AADC to ally with the ATM.[162] In the statement, the AADC's Edward Mokomele said that he had become aware that "Manyi and ATM leadership are laundering money through the party", via sympathetic churches, and additionally claimed that Manyi had met with the Guptas overseas to discuss the funding of the AADC.[163] Manyi said that he would sue for defamation and that, "AADC is my own creation, my own party and I will prove that by shutting it down".[162]

Manyi was appointed to the ATM's national executive committee and as the party's head of policy.[164] In addition, in the 2019 general election, he stood as an ATM candidate for election to the National Assembly,[1] but he was ranked 14th on the ATM's party list and was not elected to a seat.[165]

In May 2023, ahead of the next year's general election, Manyi announced that he was leaving the ATM to join the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), another opposition party. He said that he was leaving the ATM amicably and hoped to act as a bridge between the two parties.[166] He explained that, because the EFF was a larger party than the ATM, "I have decided that I can serve South Africa better in an organisation like the EFF".[167] On 6 June 2023, it was reported that Manyi had selected by the EFF to represent the party in the National Assembly.[168] He was sworn in the following day in a ceremony presided over by Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.[169]