The curious but false analogy

Jul 16, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – The invocation of South Africa’s Phala Phala farm controversy in the debate over President Irfaan Ali’s farm represents a remarkable exercise in political analogy gone astray. It is an attempt to borrow the drama of one controversy and paste it onto another situation that bears little resemblance except for one detail: both involve farms owned by presidents.

But a farm is not automatically a scandal. A farm is not a synonym for corruption. A farm is not a crime scene merely because a politician owns one. If that were the standard, then every presidential garden, business investment, cattle pasture, or family property around the world would become a potential criminal investigation waiting to happen.

The Phala Phala matter in South Africa was not about a president owning a farm. The farm itself was never the offence. The controversy arose because a substantial amount of foreign currency reportedly went missing from the property after being concealed there.

The central questions were not: “Why does the president have a farm?” or “How dare a president own livestock?” The questions were: Why was such a large amount of cash stored on the property? Was the money legally acquired and properly declared? How did it disappear? Were laws relating to foreign exchange, security, and financial disclosure violated?

In other words, the farm was the location of the alleged wrongdoing; it was not the wrongdoing itself. There was evidence of foreign currency on the farm being secreted in sofas and later stolen, leading to a criminal investigation.

That distinction appears to have escaped those eager to manufacture a parallel between Phala Phala and President Irfaan Ali’s farm at Long Creek. In the case of President Ali, there is no allegation, no evidence, and no suggestion that stolen public money was hidden on the property, that foreign currency vanished, that criminal proceeds were involved, or that a suspicious financial transactions took place.

There is only conjecture. The comparison therefore collapses at the very point where comparisons are supposed to begin: the facts.

Without an equivalent allegation, missing money, suspicious financial transactions, concealed assets, or evidence of criminal conduct, the analogy is like comparing a house where a burglary occurred with another house simply because both have a front door. Or perhaps we should now conclude that every person who owns a refrigerator must explain themselves because somewhere in the world someone once hid stolen goods in one. The object is not the offence. The circumstances surrounding the object are what matter.

A farm does not become a scandal because a president owns it. A farm becomes a matter of public concern when credible evidence suggests that something went amiss there.

The argument being advanced also misunderstands the role of democratic institutions. Of course, in any mature democracy, the word of a political leader should not automatically end an inquiry. Presidents are not above scrutiny. Institutions must investigate credible allegations. Parliament, courts, auditors, and law enforcement agencies exist precisely because power requires accountability.

But accountability is not the same thing as suspicion without evidence. Oversight is not a licence for political opponents to demand investigations without a basis to do so. The existence of democratic institutions does not mean that every accusation, however weak or speculative, must be elevated into a national scandal. The principle is “investigate credible allegations because no one is above the law.”

The danger of careless analogies is that they cheapen genuine accountability. The lesson from South Africa is not that presidents must prove their innocence every time someone points at a piece of land they own. The lesson is that when there is credible evidence of possible wrongdoing, institutions must act.

In Phala Phala, the question was: what happened to the missing money? In the case of President Ali’s farm, the question appears to be: where did he get the resources to build this farm? Those are not the same questions. They do not belong in the same sentence, much less the same argument.

Institutions worthy of their name should pursue facts, not fantasies.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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curious, false analogy, Peeping Tom, Phala Phala farm, President Irfaan Ali's farm

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