Freshly-minted ANC head of the integrity commission (IC) Frank Chikane did not mince his words when he told the nation this week: “I am not ready to be governed by criminals.”
Good for him. We have been feeling defeated despite holding on to a smidgen of hope. Knowing his history, Chikane probably meant it. He was, after all, thrown out of his ivory towers at the Union Buildings by kings of pilfering — the Jacob Zuma gang that would later be ensnared in state capture. It’s his time now.
“We need to make sure that criminals don’t take over the country, for now criminals are running us — in terms of Eskom for instance, we have darkness here because criminals are holding us ransom — and we need to break it,” Chikane told TimesLIVE. Well, are they holding us to ransom or are they running us? Which is which?
I’d venture that not only are they running us, but they have also already taken over the country. They are not holding us to ransom, they are dictating what gets done, if anything. Eskom is a low-hanging fruit, so to speak, even if real fruits, including rotten apples, might complain bitterly about the dropping of standards!
The criminality at play at Eskom is jaw-dropping. It makes you wonder why the Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana saga takes precedence over the murderous files involving billions, politicians and crooked officials for Netflix drama proposals. But one could say the same about the billions of rand wasted through local government that auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke was talking about last week or many other horror tales that indicate that state capture didn’t end with the downfall of Zuma.
Chikane will sure have his cup overflowing not because of mere malfeasance or ethical lapses but downright criminality. If he just got the names of the people implicated in the looting of state companies and departments, many of his comrades will be found wanting. More so because he says he and his team will not simply let people off the hook because criminal investigations against them have come to nought. He correctly makes a distinction between criminal conduct and ethical lapses that bring the ANC into disrepute. This makes the scope even bigger. He needs all the luck.
The question for Chikane therefore isn’t whether his heart is in the right place. It is if his handlers will allow him wiggle room to do his job.
The question for Chikane therefore isn’t whether his heart is in the right place. It is if his handlers will allow him wiggle room to do his job. Even if to just pretend he is doing it. While trying to give us hope, Chikane also inadvertently gave us reasons to worry. “Since I’ve come (on board) we’ve interacted with the new leadership and I’m pleased to say that they have expressed support for what we are appointed to do. We raised the issue of cases that were referred to the NEC which were not acted upon and we said that they need to act on them because if they did not, our role becomes not useful.”
The support received must be welcomed but must not be the oxygen relied upon for the commission to do its work. At a general level, this is where we get many things wrong as a country. Those among us who ought to exercise their minds and apply their skills independently are seduced by the allure of power and develop unhealthy affinities and allegiances that blind them to their core mandates.
Look at the sorry saga unfolding in our country involving the suspended public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who for good reason is being hauled before an inquiry. Had Mkhwebane simply been — or even pretended to be — independent, we wouldn’t be witness to this Netflixy drama around her. Without belabouring the point, the examples are many.
Similarly, Chikane ought not to make much of the support expressed towards his IC from the people whose conduct he should scrutinise dispassionately. Otherwise, he will come across as a pensioner just happy to be assigned meaningful responsibility and whose words we must not take seriously when he says anything related to Phala Phala. And he does express concern — and some might say fear — of a spectre of “cases that were referred to the NEC which were not acted upon”. Who wants to write reports that simply disappear into the ether?
And therein lies Chikane and the IC’s other problem: they simply produce ignorable recommendations. If their recommendations are inconvenient, as any serious consideration of the Phala Phala matter will prove to be, they stand to be ignored. And that’s a shame.
The criminality that runs through the government system is killing us, one by one. It may be the brown water people of Hammanskraal are asked to drink. Or the bridges that are washed away in Ntuzuma, Durban, because of the floods which live as deathtraps for over a year. Or outages that lead to Neyamiah Eaton dying. Or the unnamed thousands attacked in their houses because load-shedding has reduced us to sitting ducks for criminals.
South Africans are going through a lot. If Chikane has any hope of bringing integrity back to the ANC, he must speak like he believes he is, in fact, independent and is not seeking vacuous approval from the very people whose criminality and ethics he is supposed to be investigating.
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