Daily Dispatch

The hidden price of ‘state capture’

IF THE turmoil being played out in our police force weren’t so true, it may make for a good tragi-comedy television series. But it is true, and as underlined by the South African Council of Churches (SACC) in its Unburdening Panel report released by Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana at the iconic Regina Mundi Church in Soweto on Friday, it is part of a deadly serious attempt to destroy the very fabric of our young democracy – bought with the blood, sweat and tears of so many people for so long.

All of us will eventually pay the full price; we will know only when we find out how many billions of rands have been stolen.

Within nine years, we have had three police commissioners removed in disgraceful circumstances, and a fourth on the verge of criminal prosecution.

First it was Jackie Selebi who quit in January 2008 and was jailed in 2010 for corruption.

Then it was Bheki Cele, suspended in 2011 for his part in an illegal R500-million lease for a new police headquarters and fired in June 2012.

Third up was Riah Phiyega, in charge on August 16 2012 when police massacred 34 miners, and injured another 78, at Marikana. She was fired in October 2015 when an inquiry found she had tried to lie her way out of trouble, and was hopelessly incompetent.

Now we have acting commissioner Khomotso Phahlane battling the Independent Police Investigative Division over allegations of corruption.

One of the more chilling revelations by the SACC was that “state capture” was much more than just corruption. It is a deliberate programme of securing control over state wealth by chronically weakening institutions of governance and their operational structures.

By creating uncertainty and chaos at the top, and getting rid of skilled professionals, institutions who should protect the nation against theft are either unable – or actually complicit in the crime itself.

Apart from the police, we have seen the same happen in the National Prosecuting Authority – also over the last eight years.

We saw Menzi Simelane appointed in 2008 as National Director of Public Prosecutions, with Nomgcobo Jiba as his deputy in 2010.

In December 2011, Simelane was fired and replaced by Mxolisi Nxasana who clashed with Jiba and laid criminal charges of perjury against her. But she was not removed. He was. In May 2015 President Jacob Zuma announced that Nxasana had quit – later denied by Nxasana in a sworn statement to a court – and replaced by Shaun Abrahams in June 2015.

The SACC details similar patterns in the South African Revenue Services and the Hawks. The removal of Hawks commander Mthandazo Ntlemeza by the courts in March this year is a classic example. And so it continues. But the point is that all this creates an environment in which effective administration of law and order become paralysed – at a time we can least afford it.

And that’s what should be worrying all of us – because there will be a price we will have to pay and we haven’t yet seen it.