EDITORIAL | Only action will ensure the Zondo commission was not in vain

Apart from national assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and her deputy, Lechesa Tsenoli, one Cedric Frolick is the third most powerful figure in parliament.

In his position as national assembly house chairperson responsible for committees, a chair of chairs in parliamentary jargon, Frolick gives orders and holds all MPs chairing portfolio committees accountable.

He flexed his muscle in the strongest way possible at the height of Covid-19 corruption in 2021, when ANC MPs kowtowed to then health minister Zweli Mkhize, refusing to hold him accountable after it emerged that Mkhize and his cronies were looting millions of rand meant to shield us from the killer virus.

Frolick then did the right thing, ordering the health committee to hold Mkhize and his department to account.

But this week he emerged among the enablers of state capture who aided Bosasa in fleecing the public purse.

The third part of the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture has recommended that Frolick be subjected to criminal investigation for his role in how Bosasa greased the hands of dirty politicians only interested in lining their pockets.

This was after the Zondo commission found that Frolick facilitated meetings between Bosasa, other politicians and former ANC MP Vincent Smith and received payments.

At the time, Smith was chairperson of the correctional services portfolio committee reporting to Frolick.

As per the ANC’s lexicon, Frolick must ‘step aside’ until he’s cleared or convicted by the national prosecutions authority.

During that time, Bosasa scored billions in questionable contracts from the department Smith’s committee was “overseeing”.

All this tells you that Frolick is no longer fit and proper to remain in his influential parliamentary job.

He’s clearly been “Frolicking” with the bad boys and can no longer be trusted with the job of protecting the country’s laws and public resources.

As per the ANC’s lexicon, Frolick must “step aside”, until he’s cleared or convicted by the national prosecutions authority.

Keeping a discredited figure such as Frolick in the higher echelons of parliament will only serve to aid the erosion of public confidence in the national legislature that already has a credibility deficit.

In the same vein, his Bosasa co-beneficiaries such as minerals and energy minister and ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe and deputy defence minister Thabang Makwetla should also follow suit.

And so too should disgraced former minister of communications Nomvula Mokonyane from her job as head of organising at Luthuli House, the headquarters of the ANC.

The Zondo commission found that Mantashe and Makwetla had enjoyed security services sponsored by Bosasa, while the former was secretary-general of the ANC and the latter the deputy minister of correctional services at the time.

Zondo has recommended that Mokonyane should also face criminal prosecution for getting Bosasa to pay for her 40th birthday among other things.

Should President Cyril Ramaphosa and the rapidly diminishing number of ANC leaders who still have any semblance of respectability fail to act on these four people, his “renewal” campaign will be the subject of mockery.

With Zondo’s fourth and last part of his report due only in April, law enforcement agencies now need to step up and act on the commission’s recommendations with speed but without fear or favour.  

Mantashe arrogantly made it clear at a press conference yesterday that he will not be stepping aside anytime soon, until a prima facie case against him is proven beyond reasonable doubt.

And with that, he’s dared Ramaphosa on the one hand, and the Investigating Directorate within the NPA on the other.