Daily Dispatch

EC’s mammoth problem of graft

THE appointment of a crack joint task team to probe corruption in three rural Eastern Cape municipalities is to be welcomed. On Friday we reported that a top-level team of investigators from the Hawks, the Asset Forfeiture Unit and National Prosecuting Authority had been formed by the national head of the Hawks, Lieutenant-General Mthandazo Ntlemeza, to look into “worsening corruption” in the OR Tambo district municipality, Engcobo local municipality and the troubled Mnquma local municipality.

The team is being led by an experienced brigadier with specialised skills whose name is not being divulged for security reasons.

This announcement did not come a moment too soon. At the Daily Dispatch it seems that barely a day passes without our reporters being confronted by yet another case of flagrant corruption.

Last week Butterworth was in the spotlight repeatedly.

As a newspaper we report on such cases, not because we relish the manifestation of corruption. Quite the contrary. We find it deeply distressing. Particularly when it occurs with such unrelenting frequency.

We despair because corruption is always at a cost and in an area as impoverished as this eastern half of the Eastern Cape, it is a cost that communities are hardly able to bear.

Plundering state coffers not only robs communities of resources intended for their service, it also robs them of opportunities to develop and grow. Worse is that if left unchallenged, corruption can cause unravelling of such horrendous proportions that it ultimately saps the lifeblood of the vulnerable.

It is perhaps for this reason more than any other that we, at this newspaper, consider it a duty to report on cases of corruption when they come to our attention.

This is a task we do not undertake lightly. When the stakes are high the risks for journalists tend to escalate, and it is a matter of public record that our reporters and editors have at times done their work at great personal risk.

This is another of the reasons why we applaud the formation of the joint task team. But while we applaud it, we must emphasise that combating a problem which is largely systemic in its origin cannot simply fall to the Hawks to fix.

There are many factors that feed corruption. Included is a lack of transparency and insufficient accountability. This relates, among others, to the opaque system of allocating tenders which is as foolhardly and dangerous as it is short-sighted.

There is also the absence by those in authority or leadership to demonstrate their commitment to deal with corruption – at all levels.

Political instability, including the possibility of internal purges, is seen as another driver for individuals rushing to grab as much as they can as quickly as they can.

That in turn points to a more fundamental problem. Essentially, that the corrupt have failed to understand why they were entrusted with responsibility or leadership. They also do not know what they are doing or supposed to be doing.

A perfect example is the case in which a bankrupt municipality like Mnquma pays out millions of rands for black bags at 10 times the going price, enriching individuals whose only competence seems to be bloodsucking.

Much like the Mandela funeral looting, this is evidence of how badly things have gone wrong and of how much more is required than an investigation by a joint task team to set it right.