Kudos to Molefe for stopping rot

Popo Molefe has every right to feel vindicated this week after the high court set aside a controversial R2.6-billion tender for locomotives. The chairperson of the board of the Passenger Rail Authority of South Africa (Prasa) and his fellow directors have been pushing for investigations into fraud and corruption at the rail agency.

Their term of office finishes at the end of this month and recently appointed Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi appears determined to get rid of them.

Molefe has, all along, been questioning the attitude of the departments of transport and public enterprises to issues being raised by the Prasa board.

He says that the attacks on the board “give the impression that people were acting in unison in defence of the corrupt individuals we were investigating”.

He and the board also had to take the extraordinary step of going to court to force the Hawks to act on the information given to them. Molefe wants all those involved in the corruption to be prosecuted.

If only the other boards of our state-owned enterprises and their chairpersons had the sort of backbone displayed by Molefe and his colleagues, then perhaps this country would not be bleeding billions through corruption, maladministration and inefficiency.

Even as the court was setting aside the Prasa contract, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba was announcing yet another – this time R2.3 billion – bailout of South African Airways.

There are other cash-bleeding parastatals – Eskom immediately comes to mind – where all sorts of dodgy and expensive dealings have been identified, right under the noses of their “hear no evil, see no evil” boards.

Molefe makes the important point that everybody – civil society, government and state entities – must be involved in the fight against corruption because corruption is, simply, robbing the poor.

We need more people like Popo Molefe.