Use anti-corruption ‘one-stop-shop’ to crack bad eggs

Jacques Pauw’s call to “Axe these listeriosis legionnaires” (March 11) is strong on the facts and the politics, but as bald as the three “bad egg” legionnaires (Moyane, Abrahams and Fraser) he identifies when it comes to the law.

The “CR17 team” has available to it, for urgent implementation, the authoritative judgments of the Constitutional Court in the 2011 and 2014 Glenister cases concerning the combating of corruption. This legal learning was ignored, for obvious reasons, during the Zuma years.

By establishing an anti-corruption “one-stop-shop” (often called a Chapter Nine integrity commission) and removing corruption busting from the wider mandates of the NPA and Hawks, the rotten apples of the Zuma administration, known and (at present) unknown, can be eliminated from the system far more efficiently than by any other legal method.

If the Ramaphosa administration does not have the political will to do the necessary, civil society will have to mount a legal challenge aimed at rendering the anti-corruption machinery of state capable of acting without fear, favour or prejudice in a constitutionally compliant manner. It is surely common cause that the standards set by the courts are not being achieved by the captured Hawks and limping NPA.

Paul Hoffman SC, Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa

Mass deaths but no one accountable

In recent years, there have been at least three very frightening incidents of preventable mass deaths in the country. The first occurred at Marikana. Forty-four people died needlessly. Instead of people in both the public and the private sector taking responsibility, the blame game was played. Everyone was in denial. No criminal prosecutions have taken place.

The second shocking incident was the withdrawal of the Life Esidimeni facilities for mentally ill people, and the resultant deaths of at least 143 vulnerable patients who were given inadequate care afterwards. We learn that ill people were removed from a safe place to cut costs.

These seriously ill people were then moved to organisations where those caring for them had no idea how to look after them. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for these terrible deaths. Again, nobody has been prosecuted.

Now we have more than 180 deaths as a result of a preventable bacterial disease — listeriosis. We read, among other tragic cases, that a child aged six days died as a result of infected food eaten by the mother during pregnancy. Careful investigation has led to the source of this infection. But the blame game, with denials, has started all over again. No one is accountable. I believe that crimes of wilful killing or neglect have been committed, but so far, no prosecutions have taken place.

Both the public and private sectors continue to let the ordinary people of the country down.

Ros Hirschowitz, Parktown North

EFF’s land strategy a lie

The self-flattery of the EFF is boring. More like delusions of grandeur. Land was top of the PAC agenda when it contested the 1994 election with the slogan “Land first, and the rest shall follow”.

If land (the real thing about land, not the current rhetoric) was a factor, South Africa would be ruled by the PAC. But the electorate rejected the PAC, which received only about 1% of the vote. At the time, Malema was punting the charterist “Land belongs to all those who live in it”. When Mosiuoa Lekota articulated this sentiment of the Freedom Charter in parliament recently, most were disgusted with his utterances — yet that is exactly the understanding of the charter that led Africanists to abandon the ANC in 1959.

The EFF is not a champion of land recovery for Africans. Theirs is more to do with displaying anger at white people so that they can appear to be radical revolutionaries. Please media, stop feeding your consumers the lie of the EFF being champions of land recovery.

Dr Kenosi Mosalakae, Houghton

Who taught the teachers?

“Teachers fail simple maths, English tests” (March 11) refers. While I understand that teachers might battle to understand a paragraph in English if it is their second language, their inability to do the simple maths/arithmetic is unacceptable.

The question to be asked of the government is: “Who passed these teachers when they were training?” Were the “trainers” completely incompetent or did they simply pass everyone in their class regardless of the students’ inability?

Second, who is going to make sure this does not continue? Are those teachers still in the classrooms? What are the principals doing about monitoring them?

Michael Bandey, former deputy headmaster, Grahamstown

Dave, you’re ruining the tour

Congratulations to Dave Richardson and the ICC. Dave, you and your team have spoilt probably one of the best cricket tours ever to hit our shores. You, with your antiquated, unimaginative suspension system of so-called misdemeanours on the field have not only punished the player concerned but the rest of the team as well.

Not only that, but you have also punished us, the paying public. The very people who pay your inflated salary. If the Aussies play their cards right they could get you to ban AB or even Ngidi. They are laughing their heads off all the way to Cape Town.

Dave, cricket is not about you and the ICC. It is about the players, the paying public and a game called cricket. Do you guys not know that it is the Rabadas and Warners we pay to see play at their best? Andrew van Heerden

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