That President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet is looking more like a dysfunctional family is no longer a secret. Open warfare has broken out among senior members of his government. People no longer speak in codes. They are trading insults in public, and speaking through their lawyers.

The allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma and the investigation thereof by Bulelani Ngcuka have been like a dagger through the heart of the party. The air is thick with suspicions and accusations of betrayal. The president himself is staying mum on the matter and had to be provoked to proffer an opinion.

If there was any doubt about the state of affairs in government such doubt must have been put to rest by Penuell Maduna's decision at the weekend to throw in the towel, and the reasons he gave for his decision.

The ANC, Maduna said, was being torn by backstabbings and smear campaigns among comrades which were the upshot of the Scorpions investigation of Zuma. The Hefer Commission was almost designed to "cauterise the wound" inflicted by such knives.

Maduna's public intervention is almost a plea to be left alone. He is saying to his adversaries: "Sheathe your daggers. I have no designs on your jobs or careers. I'm no threat. Let me see this parliament through and then I'm out of here".

That must be music in Zuma's ears, who has been led to believe Maduna was after his job. Whether Zuma will retain his job after the elections is another matter altogether.

One sensed that Maduna also feels betrayed by Mbeki. Maduna was only conscientiously doing the job he was appointed by Mbeki to do, and instead of coming to his aid, Mbeki seems to have cast him to the wolves.

In this whole sorry episode, Mbeki and the ANC have been roused into saying something only when Zuma was being attacked. Maduna and Bulelani Ngcuka have almost been caricatured as lone rangers, and a public perception has been allowed to take root that they have no support from either Mbeki or the ANC. They have been hung out to dry.

ANC meetings must be very tense affairs these days. It is not easy to pretend it is business as usual, or to mask the schisms. How one would wish to be a fly on a wall at cabinet meetings! As one politician once famously suggested, if you cannot stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen. Maduna certainly cannot stand it.

It is interesting that Maduna is off to India with Mbeki this week. It is a bit difficult to understand what the role of a justice minister is in foreign relations?

Maybe he just wants to have his fill of foreign jaunts before he retires. But a more plausible explanation may be that he would rather die than attend another cabinet meeting chaired by Zuma.

Things must be really rough when a cabinet minister can be reduced to tears. A trip to India must therefore be a welcome relief for him.

But it would be unfair to pick on Maduna. After all, the president has taken enough ministers to India to let him easily hold a cabinet meeting at the Taj Mahal.

Maybe the ministers on the India trip are also uncomfortable with Zuma.

The investigation into Ngcuka, which now includes Maduna, has thrown up a few oddities.

First, the wrong man, Ngcuka, is being investigated. Ngcuka is only doing his job. If Ngcuka was an apartheid spy, which is doubtful and in any case an irrelevance, one cannot see how that gets Zuma - and Mac Maharaj - out of jail. They are clutching at straws. Mbeki appoints an inquiry in response to the spying charges against Ngcuka made by people like Zuma and Maharaj and then castigates outsiders for alleging ANC member were apartheid spies.

Writing in ANC Today two weeks ago, he said: "They are fishing in muddy waters to allege, with no effort to prove their allegations, that some members of the ANC and the government worked as members of the apartheid intelligence services."

But surely the president must be aware that it is his number two among others who has been peddling this lie. The president can stop these whispering campaigns if he wants to. All he has to do is call in his deputy and tell him to stop it.

And if indeed these allegations are without any substance why appoint a judge to investigate them?

Doubtless Judge Joos Hefer is an upstanding member of society who's served the legal profession with distinction. He has all the qualifications to look into this issue, or any other issue for that matter.

But he's an odd choice to lead the inquiry given the matter to be investigated.

The inquiry is in a way an attempt to cleanse ourselves of our past, and Judge Hefer was a pillar of the establishment which will be under scrutiny. It's difficult to see what the inquiry will achieve. But we are in the realm of suppositions.

One theory has it that Mbeki knows that Ngcuka is innocent of this canard and that the inquiry will clear Ngcuka, thus putting the spotlight back to Zuma and his cohorts. Maduna seems to give this line of thinking some credence by saying the setting up of the inquiry is an attempt to "cauterise the wound" inflicted by backstabbing within the ANC.

That would suggest that the inquiry is merely a substitute for political action. But in any case treating the wound while the dagger is still embedded in the flesh is putting the cart before the horse.

To take the metaphor further, they need to first wrench the dagger and staunch the bleeding before applying any balm to the wound. Otherwise it will fester and invite maggots. That means honest and decisive action by Mbeki on the issues around his deputy. That won't be easy.

But then who said it was easy being leader of any country?

But such action will be good for the country, and may prove cathartic for the ANC as well.

Barney Mthombothi is editor of the Sunday Tribune in Durban

With acknowledgements to Barney Mothombothi and The Star.