Qaanitah Hunter writes that by creating another complicated layer in the fight against corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa will only entrench ineffeciency and further finger-pointing when state institutions are found to be sleeping on the job.
President Cyril Ramaphosa did the most Ramaphosa thing in response to the growing concern around the corruption pandemic engulfing South Africa: appoint an anti-corruption council to further appoint a statutory body that will in turn report to parliament on corruption.
Are you as confused as I am?!
In his State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening, his fifth since he took over in 2018, Ramaphosa tackled the issue of corruption towards the tail end of his speech.
He did reference early on in the speech that government has four priority areas for the year, with anti-corruption being the fourth one.
There was no way he could deliver his speech without reference to corruption that has reached pandemic proportions recently.
"Corruption is one of the greatest impediments to the country's growth and development," Ramaphosa acknowledged.
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And yes, compared to three years ago, Ramaphosa is right in acknowledging that there has been some significant effort to rebuild the criminal justice system after it was paralysed in the Zuma years.
"Critical leadership positions have been filled with capable, experienced and trustworthy professionals," Ramaphosa said and the stability at the NPA is a good example of this.
But without even taking a breath, Ramaphosa then talks about National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council which will soon be appointed and this is where I am completely stumped for words.
He said:
"We will shortly be appointing the members of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, which is a multi-sectoral body that will oversee the establishment of an independent anti-corruption body that reports to Parliament."
Why would you set up new entities when the existing ones are struggling with capacity and are underfunded?
There is an existing Anti Corruption Task Team-made up of the NPA, Hawks etc- that is struggling to do its job and by the account of its own leaders, has largely failed.
Just this past November, parliament's standing committee on public accounts (SCOPA) heard how the Anti-Corruption Task Team was under-funded, with the National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi pleading for more investment into fighting corruption.
And in the past week, the Special Investigating Unit told parliament that it estimates that it may need R120 million to investigate corruption related to Covid-19 procurement alone and to date Treasury has been mum on their request for funding.
In light of this, is it prudent to have yet another council aimed at setting up yet another body to fight corruption?
What will this statutory body do?
Who will make up the council and why can't government officials, already paid by the state, do this?
This announcement by Ramaphosa is an effort to appear to be doing something but he is in fact, duplicating the work of government.
Creating another complicated layer in the fight against corruption will only entrench inefficiency and further finger-pointing when state institutions are found to be sleeping on the job.
Creating advisory councils and consensus-building platforms are Ramaphosa's signature.
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But if you have to track those existing in place, one is left with little hope on the prospects related to corruption.
On one hand, you have the Presidential State-Owned Enterprises Council that has simply diagnosed the problem related to SOEs, and then you have the Gender-Based violence advisory Council stating the obvious related to their area of concern.
This then duplicates the work of the already bloated executive.
Why do you need a department of public enterprises and a department of women, children and people with disabilities if you have these councils?!
What is the purpose of the existing anti-corruption law enforcement agencies if Ramaphsoa is just going to simply set up a duplication?
Yes, there was a lot to unpack from his speech, especially around Covid-19 and the economy, but this particular appointment left me completely baffled.
I don't think it should be ignored.
This shows a troubling pattern in Ramaphosa's presidency to manufacture parallel so-called ‘Ramaphosa-entities' which duplicate the work of existing government entities to create the illusion that work is being done.
Is it just me but this announcement made me shout out "WTF"?!
- Qaanitah Hunter is News24's political editor.
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