Thuli alone not enough to beat graft

‘SYMBOL of hope for ordinary citizens, symbol of fear for political thieves” (September 18) refers. In a normal society the Office of the Public Protector is a banal institution used by ordinary people for redress in administrative cases. Public protectors are ubiquitous in developed countries and they normally function without any fuss.

South Africa is different in that incompetence and corruption are essential attributes of a public servant. In a normal country one cannot construct a toilet without walls, a housing list cannot be manipulated and ministers cannot brazenly abuse public funds.

Transgressions of this nature are supposed to be dealt with by the managers of the institutions involved. That the offences have to be investigated by an external agency only reveals a public secret: that the public service is reluctant to investigate because of the cancer of cadre deployment and concomitant impunity.

My point is that people have been mesmerised by the successes of the public protector, forgetting that the success is akin to treating cancer with a Panado. Society has abdicated its role to a single office.

South Africa needs a competent and functioning civil service accompanied by punishment for any transgressions. The country needs a fickle, critical and informed electorate that is trigger-happy when it comes to punishing the government at the polls for any real or imagined mistakes. This is what keeps governments in developed countries on their toes.

The public protector can never stop traffic officers and immigration officers from being paid a bribe to get a driver’s licence or permit, but what can stop this is the existence of a culture that punishes these acts. — Erick Mhlanga, Thohoyandou