Durban - The public protector is under siege from many quarters and has had little vocal support from citizens whose interests she is tasked to protect. We need to play our role in defending the space for her to work without fear or favour.
Our political environment reminds me of Machiavelli’s words that: “There is nothing more difficult, nothing more doubtful of success than to initiate new ways of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit from the old ways, and only lukewarm support from those who would profit from the new way. This lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not actually believe in anything until they have had experience of it.”
Change agents like our public protector are up against a political culture that has still to grow into the promise of freedom embedded in our constitution. Holding those in public office accountable is only possible if citizens demand it and support organs of state responsible for protecting the public interest.
The biggest challenge facing chapter nine institutions such as the public protector is the tolerance by citizens of the confusion deliberately created by the ANC between the state, the government, the governing party and the president. When ministers in the security cluster invoke the risks to “state security”, that the release of the public protector’s report on the upgrades of President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence would entail, are they focusing on the “state” or the person of the “president”?
The state represents the “commonwealth” that belongs to all citizens. How can this commonwealth’s security be put at risk by the exposure of improprieties in the procurement processes regarding the expenditure of a significant amount of taxpayers’ money in excess of R200 million? How does exposure of the suggested presence of a cattle kraal worth an estimated R1.2m jeopardise the security of our commonwealth as citizens?
It is the concealment of wrongdoing in public procurement processes that is putting our commonwealth at risk. In my travels across the country in villages, townships, universities, workplaces and corporate offices, my fellow citizens point to corruption as the biggest threat to our future as a society.
They identify corruption as the reason we have not come far enough and fast enough in living out our aspirations as a society in the past 20 years. Disclosure is like sunshine that disinfects hidden wrongdoing and eradicates corruption.
Young people who comprise the largest segment of our population can shape the country’s future in next year’s elections. Yet many are not sure that registering and voting will have any impact on their future. A big part of their misgiving comes from their perception that the state, government, ANC and president are an unmovable corrupt monolith that is destroying the country. This misgiving represents the biggest risk to our democracy.
The fearless work of the public protector’s office is essential to restoring the hope in young people that no one is above the law and that citizens’ rights matter and will be protected.
Moreover, there was a worrying phenomenon among poor communities this past weekend. In some areas, people refused to register or to allow registration to take place in their areas until their demands are met. They, too, do not distinguish between the IEC, a chapter nine institution, and the government.
We must stand up and defend the space for the key institutions of our democracy to operate without fear or favour. It is a question of “for whom the bell tolls” – it tolls for all of us. Today it is the public protector, tomorrow it is the judiciary, then it will be citizens without the protection of those key institutions. By then, it will be too late to stand up.
We have been through similar moments in our history and must not return there. When I was banned and banished to Tzaneen, my lawyer was told it was not in the state’s interests to disclose why I had been banished to that area.
Are we again ready to tolerate threats to our democracy in the name of “state security” as defined by those determined to secure their positions in power? Are we willing to protect abuse of power and resources in order to protect those in public office?
We can stop abuse of power by those who should be serving us who instead focus on serving themselves. We must not shy away from raising our voices in protection of the public protector so she can do her work to secure the public interest. We have seen how her report on the IEC chairwoman’s impropriety in procuring the lease of property for IEC offices has been attacked on procedural grounds. Are we to condone wrongdoing in this and many other matters through political procedural stonewalling? Where will these stonewalling tactics end?
We have seen enough signs of the president’s lack of capacity to take responsibility for executive action at too many levels: the Schabir Shaik case, his rape trial, Guptagate etc.
His performance in Parliament where he trivialised accountability for Guptagate into a joke about it not being realistic for him to know who is landing at our airports was an embarrassment. Waterkloof is an airforce base that we have afforded him and authorised other officials to use – to serve us. It is not to be used to curry favour with his friends.
We need a strong public protector to keep the executive branch of the state accountable to citizens. We have to protect the public protector so she can continue to protect the “commonwealth” from those invoking “state security” to put our democracy at risk. We dare not fail.
Mamphela Ramphele
Source: The Mercury
Showing posts with label Malusi Gigaba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malusi Gigaba. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Why ANC’s policy reboot is flawed
The ANC has proposed a sweeping overhaul of policy governing SA’s technology sector. For the most part, the proposals are reasonably business-friendly and should be welcomed. But the lingering conviction that state intervention will ensure the delivery of services to all is still a cause for concern.
The proposals, contained in one of a series of hefty discussion documents released this week ahead of the party’s national policy conference in June, generally make for pretty good reading. Clearly, a lot of thought has gone into identifying the challenges facing the sector and what needs to be done to ensure all South Africans get access to high-speed broadband and the benefits that access brings, including a faster-growing economy. The ruling party must be commended for identifying the requirement for greater competition in the sector and the need to expand the number of players with access to scarce radio frequency spectrum to deliver next-generation broadband services. It’s a surprisingly centrist policy position paper (with a few exceptions) for a party that leans well to the left in the political spectrum.
In other respects, though, the discussion document is rather naive, in that it ignores the role that well-financed incumbent operators — such as MTN, Telkom, Vodacom and Cell C — can play in building the next-generation networks that will expand access to more South Africans. In deference no doubt to its socialist alliance partners, it’s also silent on the pressing need to privatise Telkom fully, to free its management team from the dead hand of the state that limits its ability to restructure itself meaningfully in a competitive market. Rather, it talks about setting up a second Telkom (my choice of words) by merging two lame-duck state-owned enterprises, Sentech and Broadband Infraco. This focus on state-owned enterprises spoils what is otherwise a fairly well-argued overview of the challenges facing the sector and how to grow it.
Neither Sentech nor Infraco deserves the special attention they enjoy in the document. Both have failed to prove their raison d’être. Sentech’s previous effort at building a broadband network was so spectacularly unsuccessful that it should never be given another chance to screw it up and waste taxpayers’ money. And Infraco, the brainchild of that misguided communist and former cabinet minister Alec Erwin, admits freely that the company is struggling to remain competitive where private-sector players are undercutting its prices. Infraco’s assets should be sold off to the highest bidder.
Public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba would do the country a favour by flogging off Infraco to a company that can make more efficient use of its infrastructure. It’s unfortunate, then, that privatisation is anathema to Gigaba, who appears more interested in building a political power base through an ever-expanding role for the state-owned enterprises in his portfolio.
The ANC’s discussion paper should be lauded for proposing that spectrum allocations — especially in the important 800MHz and 2,6GHz frequency bands that will be used for fourth-generation mobile broadband services — will be used to foster new infrastructure competition in the sector. But the party is placing a little too much emphasis on encouraging new players into the infrastructure game without asking who will invest the billions of rand needed. Though fostering competition is laudable, the ANC should remember it’s the incumbent operators that have the financial and technical ability to build these networks. Excluding them from the process could ultimately do more damage than good. Balance is imperative.
That said, the discussion paper is an important step forward. At the very least, it deserves rigorous interrogation and debate.
Source: TechCentral
The proposals, contained in one of a series of hefty discussion documents released this week ahead of the party’s national policy conference in June, generally make for pretty good reading. Clearly, a lot of thought has gone into identifying the challenges facing the sector and what needs to be done to ensure all South Africans get access to high-speed broadband and the benefits that access brings, including a faster-growing economy. The ruling party must be commended for identifying the requirement for greater competition in the sector and the need to expand the number of players with access to scarce radio frequency spectrum to deliver next-generation broadband services. It’s a surprisingly centrist policy position paper (with a few exceptions) for a party that leans well to the left in the political spectrum.
In other respects, though, the discussion document is rather naive, in that it ignores the role that well-financed incumbent operators — such as MTN, Telkom, Vodacom and Cell C — can play in building the next-generation networks that will expand access to more South Africans. In deference no doubt to its socialist alliance partners, it’s also silent on the pressing need to privatise Telkom fully, to free its management team from the dead hand of the state that limits its ability to restructure itself meaningfully in a competitive market. Rather, it talks about setting up a second Telkom (my choice of words) by merging two lame-duck state-owned enterprises, Sentech and Broadband Infraco. This focus on state-owned enterprises spoils what is otherwise a fairly well-argued overview of the challenges facing the sector and how to grow it.
Neither Sentech nor Infraco deserves the special attention they enjoy in the document. Both have failed to prove their raison d’être. Sentech’s previous effort at building a broadband network was so spectacularly unsuccessful that it should never be given another chance to screw it up and waste taxpayers’ money. And Infraco, the brainchild of that misguided communist and former cabinet minister Alec Erwin, admits freely that the company is struggling to remain competitive where private-sector players are undercutting its prices. Infraco’s assets should be sold off to the highest bidder.
Public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba would do the country a favour by flogging off Infraco to a company that can make more efficient use of its infrastructure. It’s unfortunate, then, that privatisation is anathema to Gigaba, who appears more interested in building a political power base through an ever-expanding role for the state-owned enterprises in his portfolio.
The ANC’s discussion paper should be lauded for proposing that spectrum allocations — especially in the important 800MHz and 2,6GHz frequency bands that will be used for fourth-generation mobile broadband services — will be used to foster new infrastructure competition in the sector. But the party is placing a little too much emphasis on encouraging new players into the infrastructure game without asking who will invest the billions of rand needed. Though fostering competition is laudable, the ANC should remember it’s the incumbent operators that have the financial and technical ability to build these networks. Excluding them from the process could ultimately do more damage than good. Balance is imperative.
That said, the discussion paper is an important step forward. At the very least, it deserves rigorous interrogation and debate.
Source: TechCentral
Monday, February 22, 2010
'Stop blaming apartheid for corruption'
Lax and corrupt public officials should stop blaming apartheid for their misdeeds, a senior government official has been quoted as saying in the ANC journal, Umrabulo, featured in The Sunday Independent. "Apartheid cannot be blamed every time some among them fail to discharge their responsibilities or get involved in corruption," said the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba.
Gigaba, who is also an ANC national executive committee member, said laxity in executing public service duty constituted corruption, but this could not be blamed on apartheid. "Most of the public servants employed in government today are not from the apartheid era, but were engaged during the democratic dispensation," he said.
Apartheid was inherently corrupt because it "was founded upon a corrupt value system that supported, spawned and was itself, in turn, sustained by corruption". "Sure, the legacy of apartheid could be blamed, but for how long?" he said.
Gigaba also rejected the argument that poverty caused corruption. "Even where they participate in corrupt activities, the poor are often the victims rather than the propellers of corruption." "Corruption is, after all, a conscious abuse of power for personal enrichment by those who have such power," he said. "The largest incidents of corruption in the public service occur among the senior management services among those that earn satisfactory salaries; where large accounts and budgets are controlled, and decisions taken. "It is at this level that huge tenders and contracts are issued and where kickbacks are often demanded for contracts and offered."
Gigaba called for a new type of public servant who could manage the conflict between private and public interest. Public servants' private business projects should not interfere with their duties as public officials. "We need to prevent and punish what is morally wrong and to encourage and reward all that is morally right," he said. "There is a need for the establishment of a professional meritocratic public service that is able to uphold the values and principles of democracy, good governance and Ubuntu, whilst sharing the ideology of development."
Gigaba's words come amid a series of service delivery protests - the latest in Siyathemba township in Balfour, Mpumalanga.
Source: IoL
Gigaba, who is also an ANC national executive committee member, said laxity in executing public service duty constituted corruption, but this could not be blamed on apartheid. "Most of the public servants employed in government today are not from the apartheid era, but were engaged during the democratic dispensation," he said.
Apartheid was inherently corrupt because it "was founded upon a corrupt value system that supported, spawned and was itself, in turn, sustained by corruption". "Sure, the legacy of apartheid could be blamed, but for how long?" he said.
Gigaba also rejected the argument that poverty caused corruption. "Even where they participate in corrupt activities, the poor are often the victims rather than the propellers of corruption." "Corruption is, after all, a conscious abuse of power for personal enrichment by those who have such power," he said. "The largest incidents of corruption in the public service occur among the senior management services among those that earn satisfactory salaries; where large accounts and budgets are controlled, and decisions taken. "It is at this level that huge tenders and contracts are issued and where kickbacks are often demanded for contracts and offered."
Gigaba called for a new type of public servant who could manage the conflict between private and public interest. Public servants' private business projects should not interfere with their duties as public officials. "We need to prevent and punish what is morally wrong and to encourage and reward all that is morally right," he said. "There is a need for the establishment of a professional meritocratic public service that is able to uphold the values and principles of democracy, good governance and Ubuntu, whilst sharing the ideology of development."
Gigaba's words come amid a series of service delivery protests - the latest in Siyathemba township in Balfour, Mpumalanga.
Source: IoL
Monday, July 27, 2009
Minister turns attention to Balfour protests
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba began a series of meetings in Balfour, Mpumalanga, on Monday to discuss the recent protests there, his spokesperson, Cleo Mosana, said.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka released a report last week on the preliminary findings of a study on a recent spate of protests across the country. Researchers flagged a lack of responsiveness to issues raised by communities, tensions between political and administrative sections of some municipalities, allegations of fraud and corruption, ward committees not functioning at their full capacity, and poor planning.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka released a report last week on the preliminary findings of a study on a recent spate of protests across the country. Researchers flagged a lack of responsiveness to issues raised by communities, tensions between political and administrative sections of some municipalities, allegations of fraud and corruption, ward committees not functioning at their full capacity, and poor planning.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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