It is doubtful any political leader anywhere works harder than President Thabo Mbeki. Since taking office in 1999, he has never ceased to amaze with his seemingly boundless energy and appetite for work, including a punishing international schedule.

And as if he is not busy enough already, Mbeki also finds time to author a weekly column on ANC Today, his ruling African National Congress's internet newsletter - where he writes cryptically but freely on a variety of issues in his capacity as ANC leader. Anyone who has written a weekly column will appreciate the pressure to think up topics to write about.

In his letter last Friday, Mbeki reflects on the media and bemoans what he sees as its offensive attitude towards Africans and its "stereotypical conviction about our government being corrupt, unless it proves itself innocent", citing current reportage on the defence procurement project as an example.

"Perhaps taking a cue from this, (the Gospel according to St. Matthew, where Jesus Christ saw and asked Simon Peter and his brother Andrew to follow Him and become fishers of men) some in our country have appointed themselves as fishers of corrupt men," he wrote. "Our governance system is the sea in which they have chosen to exercise their craft... So convinced are they of the outcome of their fishing expedition that they regularly describe the defence procurement as ‘the arms deal scandal' ro ‘debacle'...To add to the sense of impending horror, senior members of government must be implicated, including ‘the highest reaches of government', which means the President."

Mbeki's column is a useful platform for the exchange of ideas between the first citizen and the rest of us. But, unfortunately, the president's familiar fascination with the politics of race becomes all to apparent here. There is nothing racist about the media querying the role of the state in large arms purchases. It happens all the time all around the world. Of course the president, like us, is free to think and write what he wants. But we would have assumed that rather than see racist ghosts in the media on these issues, he would see allies to help make this country a better one for all.

Mercifully he does concede that on the arms deal,"in time the details of the truth will come out" and that "the sooner the better, so that we can improve our performance with regard to the achievement of the critical objective of building a truly people-centred society". Quite.

With acknowledgement to the Business Day.