Crooks who pushed SA to the brink still running riot
Who knows where the country would be now had Zuma, Molefe and Van Rooyen been left to their own devices
The announcement on Monday that Bosasa had gone into voluntary liquidation following the closure of its bank accounts demonstrates the power of the Zondo commission to cripple corruption networks. Halting corruption and taking action against perpetrators of state capture does not have to wait until judge Raymond Zondo submits his final report to President Cyril Ramaphosa. As evidence of criminality is unearthed at the state capture inquiry, it should be investigated and verified by law enforcement agencies; financial institutions should take measures to prevent further illicit activities; and government should cancel crooked contracts and act against those responsible for rampant looting. However, SA seems to be very forgiving when it comes to perpetrators of financial crimes. While we live in hope that the National Prosecuting Authority will develop the will and ability to prosecute big corruption cases, people like Marcus Jooste and Gavin Watson continue to live their lives untroubled.
In the case of the Guptas, their legal and media strategy to project themselves as victims of the criminal justice system has helped dissipate public hostility towards them. The bungled Estina and Duduzane Zuma cases are being used to revise the narrative around their criminality and normalise the idea of them returning to SA. Part of the Gupta strategy is also to demonise the state capture whistle-blowers and resisters.
Another strange phenomenon is the legitimisation of collaborators of state capture. Social media has allowed people who should be on trial for corruption to be “commentators” on politics. In the wake of the recent load-shedding crisis, people like Brian Molefe and Matshela Koko, who, in service of the Guptas, were responsible for bankrupting Eskom, have made a comeback as energy pundits. Molefe and Koko actually have the audacity to boast about their “achievements” and bewail the marvels they could have pulled off had they been allowed to stay on at the helm of the energy utility. Molefe, for example, continues to project the nuclear deal as a viable answer to the power crisis. Just this week, former National Treasury directorgeneral Lungisa Fuzile told the Zondo commission the deal would have breached government’s expenditure ceiling and condemned the country to an untenable debtto-GDP ratio of between 75% and 95% by 2030. Although the nuclear deal would have been the biggest government project in the democratic era, the Treasury was under fire for trying to follow correct procedures and protect future generations from being saddled with a bankrupted country.
The department of energy went to the extent of understating the cost of the nuclear deal by 40% to get it approved. Former president Jacob Zuma was so frustrated with the National Treasury’s safeguards that he fired former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in the hope that his replacement, Des van Rooyen, would be able to ram the deal through.
Who knows where SA would be now had Zuma, Molefe and Van Rooyen been left to their own devices? Koko has also been bragging about his ability to keep the lights on when he was at Eskom. Koko’s Twitter followers and cheerleaders like Mzwanele Manyi, who called for the two disgraced executives to return to Eskom, disregard the fact that he shot up debt by burning diesel to keep the lights on. So he is projected as a visionary instead of a state capture collaborator and beneficiary.
Like Zuma, Koko has discovered the art of reinvention via Twitter.
In the midst of the loadshedding crisis, he tweeted: “To the @Eskom_SA Guardians, do [not] leave anything to chance on 8 May. ANC is selling you down the river.”
Who are the “@Eskom_SA Guardians” and how are they able to impact on the election? There is no doubt that people like Molefe and Koko still have a loyal network of people at Eskom. Sometimes, our nation’s resilience and ability to laugh off everything is actually unhelpful. After a frightening and economically destructive spate of blackouts last week, we simply joked about our predicament and resumed the normal course of business. The fact that the department of public enterprises told parliament last week that Eskom is technically insolvent and will not survive beyond April has washed over most people. The collapse of Eskom is the most terrifying and dangerous prospect facing us in our 25-year history. Yet, as long as the lights stay on, we do not see the looming disaster as a crisis.
Most people believe this is the politicians’ problem. Expectation has built that finance minister Tito Mboweni will pull a rabbit out of a hat in his Budget Speech and all will be hunky-dory. There is no rabbit and no hat. In the meantime, we will continue to giggle and retweet the deplorables who pushed our country to the brink and still run riot without accountability.
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We live in hope the NPA will prosecute big corruption cases
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People like Molefe and Koko, in service of the Guptas, were responsible for bankrupting Eskom