How to put Zondo villains on a fast track to jail
President Cyril Ramaphosa should suspend all cabinet ministers, civil servants and companies identified by the Zondo commission as having been involved in corruption during the “lost decade” of the Jacob Zuma presidency.
Measures introduced by Ramaphosa to deal with the commission’s recommendations, welcome as they may be, are wholly inadequate. Harsher, more decisive and quicker action is needed to tackle systemic corruption, end impunity and foster a new culture of accountability in public life.
The commission named individuals, public servants and companies involved in state capture. Those who are elected officials of the ANC should be suspended from their leadership positions and barred from standing at the ANC’s upcoming national elective conference.
Companies named must be suspended immediately from tendering for government procurement contracts. They need to be blacklisted.
Leaving individuals named in corrupt activities in their posts in the cabinet, the public service and the ANC party structure — and allowing implicated companies to continue to do business with the state — gives the impression they are above the law and entrenches the culture of impunity.
It also raises the spectre that they will use their powerful positions to undermine investigations into corruption by blocking resources for law enforcement agencies, deploying their allies in these agencies to manipulate investigations, or use state resources to undermine investigations.
It gives the impression that the only individuals who will be prosecuted are those who are not politically connected, who are not part of powerful factions in the ANC and who are not influential in the party’s leadership elections. The strategy of going for “low-hanging fruit” through selective prosecutions undermines the commission’s authority.
Suspending high-ranking ANC and government officials named by the commission for corruption will provide Ramaphosa with the opportunity to refresh his jaded cabinet with more competent ministers who can deal with South Africa’s state failure, lawlessness and social disorder. The current crop appear totally out of their depth — or too compromised to tackle the problems.
Ramaphosa should consider setting up a special tribunal to prosecute those named by the commission. Such a tribunal could be staffed by foreign jurors, prosecutors and experts to ensure impartiality, competence and resolve, as part of a package of more drastic measures to fast-track prosecutions.
In 2019, the Special Investigating Unit established the Special Tribunal to expedite the recovery of state money, assets and resources lost through negligence and corruption. The Special Tribunal adjudicates after the conclusion of investigations.
It may be too clogged up with ordinary corruption cases and lack sufficient personnel and resources to take on the prosecution of Zondo cases, so a dedicated special tribunal should be considered.
Countries use special tribunals as a mechanism to prosecute powerful individuals in the state, public service or business when existing institutions may not have the financial capacity, competence or political will to do so.
Special tribunals speed up prosecutions as cases can bypass the long queues at courts, where corruption cases must wait their turn and can be dragged out while the perpetrators destroy evidence or hide assets.
If external help is necessary, Fatou Bensouda, the successful former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, for example, could be asked to head a tribunal prosecuting state capture cases.
Leaving individuals named in corrupt activities in their posts gives the impression they are above the law and entrenches the culture of impunity