Citizens involved in state capture urged to open up
THE South African Council of Churches yesterday urged citizens feeling pressured to participate in state capture activities to open up to its Unburdening Panel process.
The panel was launched last year and focused on providing a safe space to those wishing to unburden and freely share their concerns and claims regarding corrupt activities and the looting of state resources.
However, renewed attention was brought to the panel yesterday, when SACC general secretary Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana asked those involved in any form of state capture to come forward.
He explained that the process was initiated following damning allegations of state capture made by former deputy minister of finance Mcebisi Jonas and former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor.
“When the governing party proved unable to deal meaningfully with these revelations, and instead seemed to live with the view that there would be no room for following up on these (claims), as ‘all hell would break loose’… the SACC opted to create a listening facility,” he said. “It was to hear from people who had either been pressured to participate in corrupt wrongdoing or had witnessed such. Some came forward only to share their experiences, with no desire to be publicly revealed... while others were encouraged to go public, and indeed did so.”
While the panel initially focused on simply creating a “facility” to divulge information on corrupt activities, Mpumlwana revealed that information showed that the trouble went beyond “petty corruption”.
What soon emerged from the process were discernible patterns of the serious systematic undermining of governance.
According to the bishop, the process had revealed a system of “organised chaos” by a power elite, centred around President Jacob Zuma, which was systematically siphoning state assets.
Ways they could achieve this was through:
1. Securing control over state wealth through the capturing of state-owned companies;
2. Securing control over the public service by weeding out skilled professionals;
3. Securing access to rent-seeking opportunities by shaking down regulations;
4. Securing control over the country’s fiscal sovereignty.
Mpumlwana explained that these shocking revelations showed that the government had lost its moral legitimacy and was putting its own interests above those of citizens.
“It is sufficiently clear to us that the government of the day has lost the moral radar that should inform the public service of ‘Batho Pele’,” he said.
Reacting to questions on whether information received would be used to take legal action against those reported, Mpumlwana expressed that it was not the focus of the panel.
“No one is getting charged; our focus is on the environment influencing the perpetrator’s actions,” he said.
Despite this, Mpumlwana added that this was not the end of the process as it formed part of a large research project which would soon go public.