‘Tighten noose on graft’
Community activist Narendh Ganesh, of Durban North, wrote a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa last week taking up a number of issues, including corruption and thuggery, and has provided his suggestions on paving the way forward
MR PRESIDENT: The Honourable Mr Cyril Ramaphosa
Sir, you will surely agree that South Africa is a beautiful country. It is steeped in history and this history has in so many ways given definition to where we are as a nation currently, both the good and the bad and indeed sometimes, the ugly.
There are differing evils that plague this world and none more so than South Africa itself. Your ascendency to the highest office of this land compels every fibre of your being to lead all of South Africa into a new realm of governance – a realm that dictates “tough love” and uncompromising leadership.
While politics dictates expediency as well as compromise to ensure power is maintained, even you will cede to the fact that such ambitions become sadly clouded when the zest for power overrules rationality and reality, truth and integrity.
We are a work-in-progress as a new order in a new democracy that is fast eroding, not so much as far as democracy itself is concerned, but rather the kind of people entrusted to administer such democracy.
In a short space of time, multitudes of our countrymen and women have resorted to the most despicable forms of corruption and thuggery that has not only undermined progress, but has also reflected poorly on those who lead.
While being a new broom in terms of the presidency, it is incumbent upon you singularly to rehash governance, alter the paradigm, forsake what is becoming an uncomfortable yet pathological loyalty to party lines for self-gain and elevate the interests of the citizen to where it belongs.
Perhaps the greatest indictment on every one of us is that despite the magnanimity of a constitution that openly boasts of a non-racial society, we are perhaps becoming one of the most polarised societies masquerading in the name of freedom and democracy.
We may want to apportion blame to all who went before us, but it is becoming as rhetorical a discourse as it is a retardation of progress that darkens even further a future that once promised so much.
Our constitution speaks to the axiomatic reality of the rights of the individual. Such rights are as inalienable as they are a responsibility of the individual citizen to ensure that this country suffers no disaffection through self-serving and selfish ends that has become all too prevalent.
But sadly, this is the unpleasant reality we are facing as the future horizon hurtles towards us with ominous gloom.
In this regard, you are beseeched to act – not in equivocation but in tangible and realisable acts that redesigns the mentality and eventual conduct of each one of us, so that no amount of personal ambitions become transformed into corrupt and disdainful damnation as is occurring presently.
What I am about to suggest may seem unpalatable – even “unconstitutional” to those pundits who may gloze the value of “rights” against that of the greater good in the long term.
Noting the rampant corruption and mismanagement that pervades our state institutions, I advocate that very stringent root-and-branch changes be made in the manner in which people are appointed/ hired to public office and/or state employ, including service agreements.
First, the terms and conditions of such employ must include a concise, unambiguous and definitive aspect that gives effect to the fact that should such a person be fingered with any possible irregularity in terms of fraud, corruption or any other criminal conduct dichotomous to their basic description of work, then they must be immediately suspended, without pay.
And should the ensuing due process to determine their culpability find them wanting, then they must lose all state benefits forthwith, thereby diminishing the burden on the country in paying someone who felt no compunction to desecrate that “better life for all”, because of their own greed and selfishness.
Naturally, such action must be undertaken only after there is sufficient and overwhelming prima facie evidence to prove their guilt and with the greatest circumspection. Second, there should be dedicated courts specifically designed for such acts of criminality so as to expedite long and drawn out processes that eventually lead to irrecoverable losses to the state and the people.
Naturally, anyone seeking such employ with the state, I suspect, would have no problem in subjecting themselves to such integrity-seeking encumbrances, if they do not harbour any sense of impending criminality, and would be aware of the drastic consequences.
I am certain we have many brilliant legal minds in our midst who are capable of formulating laws that can obviate unnecessary legal wrangles and place those who choose to serve the public under extreme scrutiny and bondage of employment by such laws. And in so doing this will diminish, if not remove, any notion of committing crimes against the state and its people, as their bread-and-butter will be directly affected immediately as a result of severe and far-reaching sanctions.
Third, the sanctions imposed on the miscreants must be upped to almost draconian levels, so as to serve as real deterrents. After all, many who have defrauded the country enjoy rather fruitful lives for years as the slow wheels of justice turn, while millions still languish in impoverishment, as resources meant for the many are enjoyed by the few.
Finally, if a person is aware of the harsh penalties that they could face in very quick time, I am certain any compulsion or urge to possible wrongdoing will be curtailed, barring those with genuine criminal minds and intent.
It is because of the kid-glove treatment of the many implicated in such infidelities, due processes that take years to conclude and that a large number get “suspended on full pay” – in some cases, over a decade – that we have a perennial abuse of the state.
My suggestion may evoke distasteful malevolence from those who have sinister intentions or from those who want the “rights” of an individual protected, but a maverick approach is sometimes needed as a necessary evil to ensure that the conduct of those employed in the state sector is uncompromised by criminal intent.
While everyone is entitled to recourse for any action against them from whatever source, it must never be forgotten that it is as a result of the people that the state exists, and while maintaining fairness and justice, it is the people who consequentially suffer from the criminal indiscretions of those purported to serve them.
The Mahikeng uprisings in North West are a portent of what is yet to come a la Spring Uprisings, and if not, it is still a lesson to be learnt.