Judge For Yourself | Corruption Crisis

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Welcome to Judge for Yourself.

[00:00:02]This program, has as you probably know, one major aim.

[00:00:07]It is there to promote the Constitution and its fundamental values, including accountability and transparency of government. But I ask myself, and I'm sure you do too, how can we possibly have a viable constitutional democracy when like a cancer through the body politic, corruption just runs riot?

[00:00:29]And corruption continues. It's hard to know whether there's been much improvement between the Zuma era and the present. There are some changes and I'll come to them. But just remember this.

[00:00:42]In 2017, President Ramaphosa said that we were going to change. Like a new broom, he's going to sweep clean. That there was going to be a total change in strategy and South Africa would return to being a society where accountability and transparency of government were the order of the day.

[00:01:02]We should put all the negativity that has dogged our country behind us because a new dawn is upon us and a wonderful dawn has arrived.

[00:01:16]>> [applause] >> President Cyril Ramaphosa today's meeting with the provincial executive council in the free state. Top on the agenda is the state of municipalities.

[00:01:26]The president says across the country there is corruption, financial mismanagement and poor governance in many municipalities. He says essentially local government is largely in a crisis. The president says the number of municipalities that are placed under administration countrywide is increasing.

[00:01:48]Nine years later, I ask myself, and I'm sure you do where have the changes come about?

[00:01:55]I would love to ask the president those questions, but repeated requests have been blocked by his presidential spokesperson. You can draw inferences that you wish, but certainly it doesn't show much commitment to accountability and transparency.

[00:02:13]So, I can't ask him.

[00:02:14]But, I can pose those questions. The questions really are what is happening in our society that people think it's just fine to steal.

[00:02:24]Yes. We got rid of the Minister of Social Development after an enormous amount of effort from civil society, the press, and finally political parties.

[00:02:34]But, just think what she did. The idea that you can simply gaily go along and take very fancy SUV motor cars and give them to your daughter, even though they were not for her or for them.

[00:02:48]And that we can basically appoint a 22-year-old to be an advisor without any commitment to the regulations. And again, about the matter whether the cars were registered under my children or any As I said earlier on, can we leave that to be ventilated by ANC Women's League as well as Parliament. Your question, if we can agree, is being ventilated both by Parliament through ethics committee as well as my organization, which is the African National Congress. What mentality is there that you think if you hold a position like that, you can get away with not just get away with it, but that you're suitable for an appointment?

[00:03:30]And what gave the president the idea in the first place that she was, in fact, suitable to be the minister of anything, for that matter, let alone social development on which poor people depend?

[00:03:41]Okay.

[00:03:43]Give him credit. He got rid of her.

[00:03:45]But, it shows a bigger situation.

[00:03:48]And how endemic corruption is in our society that people think they can get away with it. Just a little while back, I interviewed yet again Jeff Weeks in that commendable book that he's written on the Decorah murder.

[00:04:02]And it shook me again as it did my audience, the extent of the corruption at the Tembi Hospital. The way hundreds of millions of rands were siphoned off so that people could buy the largest of homes in Hyde Park together with private cinemas and vast amounts of motorcars, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Porsches, you name them.

[00:04:25]And at whose expense?

[00:04:28]At the expense of the poorest of the poor who desperately need health care.

[00:04:33]What kind of mentality is it if somebody's running a hospital and thinks it's okay to steal money which is needed for the medicine and medical care of the poorest of the poor? We saw nine distinct syndicates using uh a whole platoon of Gauteng health employees who were corruptible enough to be bought off to rig the tender system.

[00:04:55]And at the detriment of all of that is the patients of Tembi Hospital. Imagine what that facility would look like with the 2 billion rand cash injection that was actually meant for it before it was diverted into the pockets of men who are extremely wealthy to begin with and had no right to that money.

[00:05:13]What kind of society are we living in when people have power of that particular kind?

[00:05:19]And of course it raises a much more profound question because as Weeks has shown, that is an endemic feature of the Gauteng Health Department according to his book. And one has to ask a further question, my goodness, what's going to happen if we in fact extend national health care right across the country?

[00:05:35]What guarantee do we have absent proper circumstances where in fact those stealing will not continue? This is something that we have said at time and time again. It cannot be that officials that are implicated in wrongdoing, then resign and get hefty pensions. She's got 3 million rand in terms of you know, pension payout and then she sailed off.

[00:05:57]It cannot be. She needs to then come and account and she needs to respond to the to the charges here. Mr. Matlala was questioned in December, but only to be arrested in May this year. Commissioner, the member are still on the ground. The operation is still ongoing in terms of assisting in dealing with the organized crime.

[00:06:22]That's what I am talking about. Now, there have been some improvements. I accept that. There have been improvements in relation to proposed legislation. There has been some greater degree of accountability. Certain people have been arrested who deserve to be arrested and of course, we await to see whether in fact they will be put behind orange overalls in jail.

[00:06:44]Reports that the majority of incidents of corruption originate in the procurement system.

[00:06:52]We cannot allow this cancer to continue and we must therefore act.

[00:06:57]I'll give you just one other example, just a little while back.

[00:07:01]The Standing Committee on the Auditor General heard during the engagement it had with the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation that only one one of the 17 cases of material irregularity reported by the Auditor General had been prosecuted even though some of the cases go back to 2021.

[00:07:21]How can we possibly have constitutional democracy in such a scenario?

[00:07:27]The one great bright light is the fact that we have appointed a really first class National Director of Public Prosecutions. But, he needs support.

[00:07:37]And the support he needs is proper legislation as we've argued in this program before.

[00:07:44]The NPA needs to be independent of departments of government. It needs its own budget. It needs for the National Director of Public Prosecution to be able to fire people with cause I accept when they in fact have corrupted the NPA.

[00:07:59]And it really is an interesting question as to why it's such a tardy process to get the necessary legislation in. What is the commitment of the government, and I mean the government of national unity in this case, to ensuring that that legislation is brought in ASAP to empower the NPA and to ensure that a level of accountability will take place and that people who steal vast sums of money and who basically deny the rights of ordinary people to live decently will find themselves in jail.

[00:08:33]Do you agree that the explanations you have given are not satisfactory? I think that's the thrust of the question.

[00:08:41]I don't agree, uh, chairperson.

[00:08:44]The Mlangeni Commission of Inquiry and the hearings that are going on in the ad hoc committee here have exposed rampant corruption in the SAPS and some metro police departments through the abuse of power.

[00:09:02]We cannot tolerate this. The rule of law depends on a police service that is ethical, responsive, and rooted in the communities that it serves. How is it that crime continues, almost, if you wish, in the same fashion that it done under state capture?

[00:09:23]It's not just a crying shame, it's a crime against the promise of constitutional democracy. It's a crime against those of you who are watching this particular program, who are living absolutely at the margins and who are denied their rightful place in society because the money that should go to uplift them is stolen by people who think it's fine to buy massive homes, huge motor cars at your expense.

[00:09:52]And at the end of the day history will in fact call them out.

[00:09:57]But before then, we need to actually look at this record and we need to judge for ourselves. Good night. [snorts]