I fervently hope I’m wrong, but chances remain high that the perpetrators of state capture will walk. Anoj Singh will not see the inside of a cell despite the incredible true tales of him picking up dirty money and dropping it off at high-security cash vaults around Johannesburg.
Malusi Gigaba will not be a guest of the state despite clear testimony by his wife and others about him receiving orders like a little boy while taking tawdry cash from the Guptas.
They will walk simply because if the ANC’s policy of cadre deployment continues it will ensure our civil service remains as inefficient and useless as it already is. Why is it useless? Professionals have been shunted aside to make way for unskilled, incompetent and political appointees.
Ramaphosa defended cadre deployment and showed an incredible lack of awareness about the difference between being loyal to our country and being loyal to the ANC.
Stories of the incredible looting of the Zuma years continued to be exposed last week while we celebrated 27 years of a free SA. The tragedy of these stories is not how corrupt our “liberators” are. The tragedy is what ANC rule has done to our country this past decade and a half: we can’t prosecute, convict or jail these criminals. The police are corrupted and make up charges and cases for political purposes, as it happened when Nomachule Gigaba was arrested by the Hawks allegedly at the behest of Malusi Gigaba, her husband. The cops involved are still working. Gigaba himself is free when he should be charged with criminal conspiracy alongside those cops.
The reason we are in such trouble emanates from this moronic idea that “cadres” of the ANC should be placed in key positions in the civil service. How broken does the system have to be before we all acknowledge just how dangerous, inefficient, logically dubious, impractical and idiotic the “idea” of cadre deployment is?
President Cyril Ramaphosa was at the Zondo commission last week, and quite frankly, if he believes what he was saying then we are in the dwang. Ramaphosa defended cadre deployment and showed an incredible lack of awareness about the difference between being loyal to our country and being loyal to the ANC. There should be no cadre deployment in SA. There should be jobs open to qualified, excellent South Africans capable of doing the job and bringing services to South Africans.
What we have had instead are qualified and excellent candidates being shunted aside so that a minister or some other ANC luminary (like the Guptas) can install their own thief in a CEO position or as director-general or head of an entity. The ANC “deployed” some of the worst possible people as the heads of government agencies in the period between 2008 and 2018. Remember Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the man who bankrupted the SABC and whose actions led directly to the broadcaster’s recent job losses? Remember the head of Sars whose bodyguards kidnapped an employee? The head of the Hawks who laid trumped-up charges against Pravin Gordhan? They were ANC deployees.
Don’t believe the nonsense Ramaphosa was spouting at the Zondo commission last week as he sought to imply a good system was subverted by bad practice. It’s untrue. Cadre deployment is the subversion itself.
Ramaphosa, without a hint of irony, told us: “It should be noted that the deployment of cadres to strategic positions is not unique to the ANC.”
This is a lousy argument. Just because Zimbabwe does it, or China does it, does not mean we should do it. It is even more important to note that the Communist Party of China places great value on placing the right candidate in the correct position. In SA, as Ramaphosa well knows, most of the time it did not matter whether the person could do the job or not. Exhibit A is Dudu Myeni. She is the reason SAA, Mango and the regional SA airlines are not flying and thousands of people are without a salary.
Ramaphosa continued: “Cadre deployment has acquired such prominence in part because of the perspective that there should be no political interference in the selection of people who work in the public sector. However, international practice suggests a more nuanced approach to this matter.”
Nuance is a lovely word. Politicians use it when they want a blank cheque. There is no nuance here: we need a skilled, professional civil service that is not tied to political office but serves the state and keeps the country running. Politicians can come and go and change policy, but the water needs to run, the sewage needs to be treated, the lights need to be kept on and the roads to be clean and smooth.
Cadres cannot do that. Most of them want to give tenders to their relatives. We know. We’ve seen it all, and that’s why so many people have lost faith in the system. If cadre deployment continues then Ramaphosa will fail, and Anoj Singh, Malusi Gigaba and Mosebenzi Zwane will be laughing – and free.
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