Cyril making ground on graft; not so much on policy

President Cyril Ramaphosa is beginning to make real headway in lining up for prosecution the runners and handmaidens who stole from the state for the Zuptas. Reports I have seen into mismanagement and corruption at Transnet are beyond shocking, but all recommend tough disciplinary action or criminal charges. The criminal charges are for people who have left the transport monopoly. Disciplinaries for those that remain. Because Eskom looms larger in our lives than Transnet, we forget that the Guptas first perfected theft at Transnet. That’s why Brian Molefe and Anoj Singh were there as CEO and CFO in the first place. It’s where Salim Essa first rears his head. Only once that was done would Molefe and Singh move on to loot Eskom.

I have read two of three reports on Transnet. Molefe and Singh are in the most dire trouble.

Of course, we are impatient. Ramaphosa announced, quite reasonably, a commission of inquiry the other day into state attorneys colluding to lose cases. But the cries on my Twitter timeline were deafening. Not another commission. Do something! Why is no-one in jail? Where’s the end of the world so I can jump off it?

The fact is, there’s progress. Slowly but surely, forensic reports are beginning to pile up. The Passenger Rail Agency of SA, Eskom. And the Zondo commission into state capture hasn’t even started yet. The investigations are all beginning to reduce the crimes committed by state executives into tables and under headings. Name, crime, laws broken, what action should be taken.

That is to help the police understand who they should be charging and what for. The new head of the Hawks was in the papers the other day conceding that his force is simply not always up to dealing with sophisticated white-collar crime. The new trend is to explain in detail to the police what wrong needs to be dealt with.

That isn’t to be patronising. The whole point of scrapping the Scorpions was to separate the functions of investigation, arrest and prosecution because it was working too well.

The effect has been to create a situation where cases can linger with either the police or the National Prosecuting Authority without either having any real power to get the other to move along. State capture worked because the death of the Scorpions hobbled the state’s ability to defend itself. Depending on who Ramaphosa finally secures to head the NPA now that Shaun Abrahams has been shown the door by the Constitutional Court, closer co-operation between police and prosecutions becomes a real possibility again.

When Ramaphosa finally gets to reduce his cabinet as promised, he should follow the UK example and scrap the intelligence, justice, prisons and police ministries and put all four under home affairs. Obviously you’d need a new minister of home affairs, but that’s another story. It’s crazy and destructive that our spies, police and the prosecutors report to different ministers now.

But while Ramaphosa makes progress closing down the state capture thieves, he is in more trouble by the day in policy and the economy. The land debate is pretty much already out of control. Gwede Mantashe, of all people, is now giving detailed briefings on how big your farm should be — 12,000ha, he says, is quite enough and if you have more the rest should be expropriated without compensation. Not only does he ignore the fact that 12,000ha in Mpumalanga is probably a lot more productive than 12,000ha in the Northern Cape, but the markets are watching his antics and, in the total silence on the matter from the president, marking our economy accordingly.

Ramaphosa has to start communicating better. Thabo Mbeki used to write a weekly newsletter which was well read and eagerly anticipated. There’s no reason Ramaphosa can’t do the same. If he has a plan, or just a vague outline of a plan, he should talk about it constantly. The land debate on its own could do us enormous damage before even one hectare is expropriated.

Land on a list circulated by AfriForum, supposedly an “official” list of farms to be taken without compensation, has already been rendered worthless by that stupid action. Who would pay a cent for one of those farms now? The government denies there’s a list. Agri SA says the list was fake. The Institute of Race Relations reckons the list is real. Do they have any proof? Or are they mad?

Whatever, Ramaphosa has to talk more or watch his economy disintegrate around him. I don’t know who his close advisers are, but they’re not doing a very good job.