Stop graft or face action

Since becoming president of the ANC and the country, Cyril Ramaphosa has inspired and frustrated the electorate following the corruption of the Zuma years. A source of this frustration is the president’s delay in confronting and rooting out corruption.

The Quaker Peace Centre (QPC) would like to remind Ramaphosa that he has the authoritative judgments of the Constitutional Court in the 2011 and 2014 Glenister cases concerning the combating of corruption to guide him. The time has come to revisit these judgments.

The courts have set the standards for an appropriate entity to investigate and prosecute corruption: a specialised, dedicated, properly trained and resourced machinery of state that is independent of the executive (and reports to Parliament) and enjoys security of tenure of office. The time has come for such an anticorruption “one-stop shop”, as the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority have shown themselves to be inadequate to the task.

We respectfully submit that there are suitable contenders, untainted by corruption, among the legal, investigative and prosecutorial community. There are also former members of the disbanded Scorpions who could play a useful role if they were allowed to.

If, for any reason, the new administration is unwilling to set up such an entity, the QPC and other civil society organisations will, of necessity, mount legal challenges to protect our country.

The corruption and looting, particularly in the last decade, will have to stop. Without this, the residents of SA will receive an ever-diminishing part of the fiscus, and poverty, unemployment and violence will rise.

Of utmost urgency is an anticorruption unit that has not only the will, but also the competence and the resources to take hold of and begin to win the battle against corruption and grand theft.

Carol Bower and John Gardner

Via e-mail