People who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it, to paraphrase the quote attributed to philosopher George Santayana. As SA hurtles down the road of a completely failed state, politicians haven’t stopped trying to kill off the parts that still work. As the last remaining functioning pillar of state, the judiciary has for the past 10 years borne the brunt of corrupt, power-hungry and morally challenged politicians seeking to remove the last obstacle to untrammelled power.
Countries that have taken this road have become a laughing stock, failed pariah states whose citizens have no choice but to flee to more hospitable countries. Look at Zimbabwe. Or just step out of the door and see Zimbabwe at the next set of traffic lights.
In that country the judiciary was among the first institutions subjugated to serve the will of crooked politicians. Freedom of speech and protest died the day Zimbabwe voted its freedom fighters into government. Everything else duly followed. The country’s massive poverty rates are a result of the ruling party’s lust for total domination over all aspects of life. Its politicians preside over a sea of poverty, where only those unable to escape remain.
Our politicians and officials seem incapable of learning anything. This week two cabinet ministers, Ronald Lamola (justice) and Fikile Mbalula (transport), went out to bat for a criminal to be released from jail, after the Joburg magistrate’s court had dismissed his bid to appeal his conviction.
Instead of upholding the law and making the trains run on time, these ministers are determined to free a convict
In 2017 Kanya Cekeshe was sentenced to an effective five years in jail after pleading guilty to setting a police vehicle on fire during a student protest demanding free university education for all. Mbalula, who was police minister in 2017, on Monday tweeted a picture of the convict, captioned: "We must fix this, this cader [sic] must be freed whatever it takes." The same day Lamola also took to Twitter in support of the convict. "We’re in the process of urgently assisting him with an application for presidential pardon or other legally available avenues." This was on the day his department had denied the #FeesMustFall activist leave to appeal his conviction.
Treasonable offence
Demanding free university education is a noble cause. But destroying state property — a police vehicle — and endangering the lives of police officers and obstructing them from carrying out their legal duty is a treasonable offence. That should not escape the notice of ordinary folk, let alone ministers responsible for upholding the constitution in the service of the nation.
While I have always known that our politicians in general and many in the ANC in particular are God’s least-gifted children, I would not have expected ministers in the "new dawn" after state capture to be so clueless as to support a convicted criminal — "whatever it takes" — at the expense of law and order.
Mbalula is in charge of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), whose trains suffer almost daily arson attacks for failing to transport people reliably to and from work. He has achieved the lowest mark yet in Prasa’s history. In September the auditor-general put a disclaimer on Prasa’s financial report, saying controls were totally lacking and reliable documents to assist the audit process were not produced.
Instead of doing "whatever it takes" to fix the agency that at least 2.5-million people rely on, Mbalula simply launched a WhatsApp group called the war room. For two years Prasa has had no properly constituted board of directors; for five years no CEO. Only 40% of trains run as scheduled. Yet Mbalula thinks he can do "whatever it takes" to release a convicted criminal. There are none so deaf … and SA is going nowhere with this bunch of losers in government.
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