Biting corruption with a zillion bytes
The Zondo commission report shows how digitalisation can be a game-changer for accountability and information
The Zondo commission says the evidence it has gathered over four years amounts to one petabyte of data. That’s the equivalent of 250,000 movies — at least one of which must be Tom Moyane fancying himself as starring in Rambo: Last Taxpayer Blood.
The first instalment of the Zondo report landed via WhatsApp moments after it was handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa, which must be a record of some kind.
At more than 850 pages, the PDF of the “Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture Report: Part 1” is just 18MB.
This volume, focusing on SAA, is an astoundingly honest assessment of the corrupt years of the Zuma administration, during which state-owned enterprises were looted until they were broke and broken.
I read the whole thing, having cutand-pasted it into a Word document so I could highlight the key quotes.
Not only is this judicial accountability revolutionary, but so is the technology that we use to access it.
When I was a young reporter, the fax machine dominated newsrooms. I used to read through 30-page speeches by IFP leader Mangosuthu
Buthelezi to find a 400-word story.
Now, I can search the PDF for “Zuma” to find the scathing assessment: “Zuma fled the commission completely without any valid reason. He did so in order to avoid having to answer questions … He did not want to account to the nation. He knew he was not going to have answers to many of the questions that were bound to be put to him.”
The digitisation of the work of commissions is a fantastic boost for accountability and the sharing of information.
It’s a boon for democracy in many ways.
Transparency is arguably the most important aspect of democracy in action. Because tenders for Covid procurement are published online, for instance, a reporter could trawl through the health department’s websites and find a little-known provider called Digital Vibes. One health minister’s career — and potential presidential ambitions — later … That’s what transparency enables.
This is a wonderful start to the new year — albeit overshadowed by the way incompetence and mismanagement contributed to the near-destruction of parliament.
It is worth noting that this is the year the US government will take on Big Tech in a meaningful way — having been upstaged by China in some areas, especially the nascent field of artificial intelligence.
The regulation, or first attempts at it, of the unrestrained, monopolistic and privacy-destroying power of the Faangs — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google — is overdue.
Much like the Zondo report’s accounting.
Please can someone wake up the National Prosecuting Authority. All the clues are neatly composed in an 18MB PDF.
Transparency is arguably the most important aspect of democracy in action