Former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi famously described the ANC as an organisation of Absolutely No Consequences. At the time, during the height of the Jacob Zuma presidency, his mockery seemed clever and appropriate.
But it was dead wrong. There are always consequences. Now SA is slap-bang in the middle of the inevitable reckoning after the ANC morphed into a criminal organisation under Zuma.
Limping institutions, decaying infrastructure, corridors of power peopled by the meek and feckless, a bizarre façade of busyness when in fact the government is doing nothing, aimless ceremonial tasks to keep up appearances — all are the result of the ANC’s conduct over the past decade. Does anyone remember what "normal" is?
It is going to take a long time to reverse the damage. Did we expect the capture of the country’s key institutions could be remedied overnight?
It has been just three years since Zuma appointee Shaun Abrahams was removed from the National Prosecuting Authority, thanks to the Constitutional Court, and replaced by Shamila Batohi — is that really enough time to see the cuffs slapped on a significant number of key figures?
Far from it. Some context — for years, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) was the best-run state institution in the country, attracting top professionals from various sectors. But it took just four years for Zuma and his lackey Tom Moyane to all but destroy it.
Sars today is on the path to recovery under the leadership of Edward Kieswetter, a former Sars executive who returned to the helm from the private sector. The revenue service will be relatively easy to turn around due to the strong foundations on which it was built, though even at Sars deep challenges remain.
Batohi never stood a chance of being able to restore the NPA within a couple of years
But the NPA and the criminal justice system were a primary target of Zuma’s syndicate, the ANC.
These institutions never stood a chance, having been undermined even under Thabo Mbeki, who apparently intervened in 2007 to try to save the then police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
By the time Batohi took the reins as national director of public prosecutions, there was little left to build on. What’s worse is that the police, including the Hawks and crime intelligence — institutions critical to the work of the NPA — remain captured and weak to this day. Their leadership has remained largely unchanged since the bad old days under Zuma.
Batohi never stood a chance of being able to restore the NPA within a couple of years. She concedes that the agency should move faster, but notes that its work is complex and the environment tough.
She said this week the resignation of Hermione Cronje as head of the state capture-focused Investigating Directorate is no reason for panic. Thus far, there is no real indication of a crisis — there is impatience, yes, but if Cronje feels she cannot contribute any more, then so be it. Leaders who cling to their posts long after their effectiveness has waned are among the reasons that SA is in the state of stagnation and decay that it is.
And you have to sympathise when Batohi’s defence is that the work of the NPA is complex — two prime examples stare us in the face every week: Ace Magashule, charged in the Free State asbestos scandal, and Julius Malema, charged with assaulting a police officer at Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral. Both are trying hard to paint the institution as politically captured all over again.
To think three years should be enough to reverse the damage done to the NPA and the security cluster as a whole is to fail to understand the extent of the damage wrought during the Zuma era.
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