Editorial

Curtain goes up on the show that will bring down the thieves

19 August 2018 - 00:00 By SUNDAY TIMES

Cleaning up of the mess left by former president Jacob Zuma is one of the toughest challenges facing President Cyril Ramaphosa's administration.
This is because the rot that set in during Zuma's ruinous nine years at the Union Buildings runs deep. Making the task even more difficult is that Zuma's lieutenants are entrenched in the public service and in every sphere of government - from national and provincial departments to municipalities.
In his attempts to hold onto power and strengthen his grip on the civil service, Zuma made sure he appointed his own people to key positions, not only in government departments but also in parastatals and in law enforcement agencies. This weakened the public service because those he appointed were not the most competent bureaucrats but people who were being rewarded for their loyalty to Zuma. So the clean-up will be hard and drawn-out. No-one knows how long. It could take years and could last as long as Ramaphosa stays at the helm of our government. So we have to be patient.Most importantly, we will need an integrated approach and commitment from all, including labour unions and law enforcement agencies. This may not be what many of us want to hear, but we have to give Ramaphosa and his team of ministers enough time to turn the tide against corruption and the general incompetence in government departments. When the rot is this deep, rooting it out is always difficult.
Ramaphosa came into office promising a new dawn by rounding up and prosecuting all those - most of them Zuma acolytes - who aided state capture that fleeced hundreds of millions of rands from the state coffers. While he has not always had his way, the biggest stumbling block has now been removed following the ruling of the Constitutional Court this week that found the appointment of Shaun Abrahams as the national director of public prosecutions invalid.
This paves the way for the prosecution of all those who are suspected of stealing from the state. No stone must be left unturned; we want them sent to jail. Abrahams was appointed in 2015 after Zuma offered his predecessor, Mxolisi Nxasana, a R17m golden handshake to walk away. At the time his colleagues at the National Prosecuting Authority hailed Abrahams's appointment and celebrated with him because, for the first time in a long while, a career prosecutor and not a political appointee had been picked for the position. Abrahams promised to prosecute without fear or favour, but soon earned himself the nickname of Shaun the Sheep for his compliance, reluctance and refusal to prosecute Zuma, his son Duduzane and their trusted lieutenants.The Constitutional Court ruling is one boost for Ramaphosa's clean-up campaign; another is the intention to suspend Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama and some of his top executives. The board of the state-owned company this week wrote to Gama and two of his senior executives, Thamsanqa Jiyane and Lindiwe Mdletshe, informing them of its intention to suspend them and asking them to explain why this should not happen.
Gama is, as we report in today's edition, taking the fight to the board and you can expect it to get ugly. But whatever happens, Gama must be booted out. He and his counterparts at Eskom, Brian Molefe, Koko Matshela and Anoj Singh, were among those who enabled the Gupta family and their associates to loot billions from the state coffers. They were all rewarded handsomely.
How and why they did it will now be the subject of the inquiry into state capture, which gets under way in Johannesburg tomorrow. The commission, headed by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, will hear evidence of how they and many others, including Zuma, masterminded this grand theft of our resources. We welcome the commission's letter to Zuma, demanding he responds to allegations against him. Zuma has for years threatened to tell his side of the story. That time has come...

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