Inaction will pave way to failed state

One thing was abundantly clear during – and after – the anarchy which overtook parts of our country last week: we have a government “security cluster” which exists in name only. The intelligence services, apparently, did not have a clue what was about to happen… and that people sympathetic to former president Jacob Zuma were about to launch a “putsch” to oust their nemesis, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

While that may have excused the lack of quick reaction from our police service initially, it did not explain why most of our cops stood by watching while the lawlessness unfolded in front of their eyes.

Nor did any of this explain why we were told the situation was not serious enough to deploy the SA National Defence Force nor, when the troops were eventually dispatched, there were so few of them… or why they were also, in their rules of engagement, ordered to stand back and monitor.

The three portfolios of intelligence, police and defence are headed by people – Ayanda Dlodlo, Bheki Cele and Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula respectively – who are clearly incompetent. Or, is there something more sinister in their inaction in the early days of what Ramaphosa called an “insurrection”? Were they waiting to see the Zuma force get the upper hand and then join them?

Whether incompetence or deliberate, the reasons for their conduct are equally alarming. There is no reason for their services to be retained in Ramaphosa’s Cabinet and the sooner he give them the boot, the better. Yet, this is the ANC which rules us … and party comes before principle, people or even nation.

Expect, then, that Ramaphosa will dither in taking firm action against them.

Yet, if he doesn’t – and fails to act against similar comrades who seem intent on undermining him – then he will only preside over a failed state.