When the Hefer commission into the allegations of spying against National Prosecutions Authority chief Bulelani Ngcuka is over, the trial of Schabir Shaik will loom and Deputy President Jacob Zuma is going to have to wake up every morning to details of how he allowed Shaik, a "businessman" entirely dependent on the state for work, to become his banker. It won't be pretty.

Even now, though, I would be more than happy to settle for a declaration by Zuma that he was naive and foolish to allow Shaik to get so close to him. That it was Shaik who assured him that meeting businessmen, and perhaps even getting a little action, was just fine. The arms dealers of France are probably not the only businessmen Shaik has introduced Zuma to in the privacy of his office.

I don't think, as some do, that Zuma is extravagant. Descriptions of his spread in KwaZulu-Natal as luxurious are ridiculous. It is a collection of dowdy huts that would normally attract little attention.

However, as we wrote in an editorial recently, it is the connections between politicians and businessmen that have begun to damage the African National Congress (ANC). The leader has attracted some vigorous comment and it is worth revisiting the issue.

We said, and still believe, the politicians should keep well away from business folk. Of course, as has been pointed out, that is not easy especially when, in your party, many senior members are businessmen and women.

But you have to try to regulate the way money and politics interact. The Sunday Times reports wealthy Durban entrepreneur Vivian Reddy believes "business and politics go and in hand. Its's very important for business people and politicians to be close because at the end of the day it's business people who make the country tick, not politicians."

I could not disagree more. The moment Reddy lent Jacob Zuma money he irrevocably destroyed the innocence of their relationship. The same would apply to Brett Kebble financing the business activities of ANC activists, or spouses of cabinet ministers taking slices of business in the gift of the state, such as mines or airport retail concessions. It's not right.

I am not saying their motives are necessarily malignant nor that money is always the thing that tilts a relationship into the improper. Bulelani Ngcuka appears to have far too many close associates who are businessmen and who, if and when they might break the law, should never be in a position to approach SA's chief prosecutor on any level the rest of us cannot.

And recent Noseweek magazine article details the involvement of ANC MPs as directors of companies in the turbulent business of municipal debt collection that should have Frene Ginwala furiously rewriting the parliamentary rule book.

Rules are vital to governing the way politicians relate to business people. Just as I have to keep a log book to claim tax back on my vehicle, perhaps politicians - government leaders at all levels, senor public servants and MPs, MECs and councillors - should have to log their formal and informal contacts with business.

Who have they met or spoken to, when, and where?

I don't need conversations recorded. But if Jacob Zuma or Bulelani Ncuka are sitting down for quiet chats with business folk about whatever, then the public needs to know that the fact of the chat may one day be made known in a court of law. Every week I get a list of the deputy president's official engagements sent to me. I barely glance at it because his official list, like everyone else's in public office, tells me nothing.

With acknowledgements to Peter Bruce and the Business Day.