Johannesburg — THE African National Congress (ANC) has left itself and its leaders out of the anticorruption script it has written, choosing instead to focus all its energies on the public service.

It's a shrewd political move, especially given the fractious nature of the ruling party. Targeting political corruption -- meaning the corruption that fills the bank accounts of individual ANC leaders as well as financing the running of the party -- is a territory into which only political fools will venture . Rooting out corruption in the bureaucracy, on the other hand, carries no political risks whatsoever for the ruling party. If anything, such a campaign -- if it succeeds -- will win the ANC kudos with the electorate.

The ANC promised in its election manifesto that it would step up measures in the fight against corruption within society, the state and the private sector -- "including measures to ensure politicians do not tamper with the adjudication of tenders".

But Zuma backpedalled on that promise soon after the elections. "We have repeatedly stated our commitment to fight corruption in the public service," he said in his state of the nation address. "We will pay particular attention to combating corruption and fraud in procurement and tender processes, application for drivers' licences, social grants, IDs, and theft of police case dockets."

This has since been followed by the establishment of the interministerial committee, chaired by Collins Chabane, minister of performance, monitoring, evaluation and administration in the Presidency.

"The interministerial committee will ensure that action is taken against all persons who are involved in corrupt practices involving public finances," the Cabinet said in its statement of November 18. "The South African government takes strong exception to corrupt practices and regards the matter very seriously because of the potential damage that this could cause to the country's reputation globally."

Zuma's political gamble is understandable. Not only is corruption in the bureaucracy less sensitive politically, but corruption by civil servants is the sort most visible to the electorate -- they encounter it when they interact with all three layers of government. Their only exposure to political corruption occurs when it bubbles to the surface through exposure in the media.

Though a good example of the art of the possible which characterises politics, it's a risky strategy. It will most likely backfire in that the country's political leadership, tainted as it is by the whiff of corruption, will lack the moral authority it so desperately needs to clean the bureaucratic stables.

By leaving political corruption untouched, Zuma will make it difficult for his executive to root out bureaucratic corruption because the very same politicians will, in the eyes of civil servants, lack the moral authority to drive an anticorruption crusade. Civil servants know which ministers are involved in corrupt practices because these same ministers ask, if not bully, civil servants to sign contracts that favour their business associates. Those who refuse are suspended pending investigations of some trumped-up charges.

This lack of moral authority makes it difficult for the politicians and the executive to lead the fight against corruption because civil servants take their cue from the politicians. It's the political assembly and the political executive that conditions the administrative ethics.

"There are limits to what can be expected of public administrators on the ethics front: our idealistic desire for reform of public sector ethics has to accept the realistic limits of what is politically feasible," said John Uhr, a professor at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University. "At some point, it is important to inquire into the sources of ethical conduct of ministers who direct the administrative system and of other elected politicians who call to public account officials as well as ministers."

Few studies of administrative ethics, Uhr told an Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development symposium in November 2007, explored the relationship between the ethics of the bureaucrats and those of ministers and elected politicians.

He added that administrative and political ethics were conditioned by the underlying national political culture and concluded that it was misleading to focus solely on the conduct of public servants or that of the increasingly prominent delegated service contractors. This was because the ethical responsibilities of public servants must be seen as one of a number of political components which are closely interrelated in their practical operations.

What we're seeing is the interest of maintaining unity within the ANC being given precedence over the interests of the country. This simply cannot be an acceptable state of affairs.

Sikhakhane is editor-in-chief of Destiny Man and a freelance writer.