South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), will hold its elective national conference this December in Mangaung.
Given that the scourge of corruption in the country has derailed the realisation of ideals such as a better life for all and access to justice, it is critical to reflect on the growing culture of corruption and intolerance to dissent within the ruling party.
As an organisation the ANC strived for the realisation of democratic values, but it is these same values that are under threat in the current dispensation.
Divisions within the ANC became apparent after the Polokwane conference and these divisions have fuelled vicious disagreements that have in some instances resulted in violence and even murder.
Although several officials from the time of former President Thabo Mbeki have been found to have misused their power and engaged in corrupt activities, there is a widespread perception that high-level corruption has become more overt and blatant under President Jacob Zuma.
Numerous high-ranking officials within the ANC and individuals working in a variety of institutions have been suspected of corrupt activities, but in most of the cases these officials have yet to stand trial. The integrity of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is called into question regarding allegations of corruption given that this entity has been found to selectively prosecute individuals.
On 17 July the former Mayor of the Rustenburg municipality, Matthew Wolmarans, was found guilty of orchestrating the murder of Moss Phakoe, who was a councillor in the local municipality.
Phakoe had compiled a dossier containing evidence of Wolmarans's corrupt dealings. Prior to his death he had submitted the dossier three times to the office of Gwede Mantashe, the secretary-general of the ANC, but the allegations were not investigated. He also met with President Zuma regarding the allegations, but the matter was considered an internal political dispute rather than a criminal matter that should be settled by the court.
Two days before he was killed he had met with the former minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, and Wolmarans. At this meeting he handed the document to the minister and said to Wolmarans, 'Hurt me, but don't kill me.' Wolmarans and his bodyguard were sentenced to 20 years in jail and life imprisonment respectively, but if the allegations had been taken seriously and Phakoe had been provided with sufficient protection his death might have been averted.
The fact that Phakoe's calls for an investigation into corrupt activities implicating the former mayor and his cronies were ignored by those in the top echelons of the ANC is a poignant example of how corruption, specifically involving those seen to be loyal, is condoned in the party. This raises questions about the integrity of the current crop of leaders.
The issue of the integrity of individuals holding powerful positions has again come to the fore in the case of suspended prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach.
At the time of her suspension by the NPA, Breytenbach was the regional head of the specialised commercial crimes unit and had relentlessly pursued the corruption case against former crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli.
Breytenbach took the NPA to the labour court in an urgent bid to have her suspension lifted. Judge Hamilton Cele dismissed her case, noting that, 'The applicant has not shown the existence of any extraordinary or compelling, urgent circumstances to justify a final declaration of the unlawfulness of her suspension.' However, Cele went on to state that the proceedings in the dismissal challenge had demonstrated that if the NPA was to exercise its right to discipline her for the charges she had been suspended for, it may actually be 'flouting' and 'frustrating' the investigations ordered by the North Gauteng High Court into the suspension of Mdluli, in which Breytenbach would likely be 'vital'.
The judge further noted that, '[i]f she is found guilty and dismissed, she will be handicapped from utilising the tools of the trade that she might need in these investigations' and, 'the justice sought to be striven for in the matter of General Mdluli would have been seriously compromised'. This gives some credence to her assertion that her suspension was meant to deter her from charging Mdluli.
Connected to the issue of corruption is a culture of intolerance and impunity that is splintering the party. The implication of high-level officials in the assassinations and attempted assassinations of whistle-blowers and other dissenters is a worrying trend in the political culture of the current administration.
In 2010, there was an upsurge in politically motivated killings in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga with some of them linked to corrupt 2010 Soccer World Cup tender awards. The media has also reported that political intimidation is especially rife in KwaZulu-Natal.
There are many other examples of abuse of power and the failure of the current administration to hold those responsible accountable. The culture of corruption and impunity within the ANC is worrisome and it is crucial to expose these practices in the interest of guarding the ethos of democracy and accountability.
Increasingly, it is becoming clear that those institutions that have the responsibility to hold every citizen accountable, including the political elite, have failed in the case of the powerful and the well-connected, who disregard the rule of law without regard for the possible consequences. This has contributed to undermining the effectiveness and legitimacy of a range of social and legal institutions.
In the long term, the erosion of the legitimacy of a range of institutions such as the police, the NPA and others will be an obstacle to the consolidation of democracy and the strengthening of these entities.
A vibrant democracy with robust institutions is pivotal to the betterment of the lives of all South Africans, particularly the poor, and when such institutions fail in the realisation of their mandate the ideals of equity and justice aspired to in the constitution are under severe threat.
Source: all Africa
Showing posts with label Moss Phakoe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moss Phakoe. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2012
South Africa: The Unholy Trinity - the Roots of Corruption in Our Society
The scourge of corruption in South Africa has tightened its grip on our society over the past decade, threatening our democratic achievements, eroding the capacity of the state to advance serious socio-economic transformation, and often undermining the solidarity culture of our broad movement.
The SACP was amongst the first formations to actively launch a mass campaign against corruption - A Red Card Against Corruption. Tragically, there are already martyrs in the struggle against this corrosive evil - among them Mpumalanga SACP cadre, Radioman Ntshangase, and Rustenburg municipal councilor and former NUMSA shopsteward, Moss Phakoe. Both were gunned down for their courageous stands against corruption.
But what lies behind this terrible contagion?
Various explanations are advanced in the South African public debate.
Often it is reduced to bad individual behavior calling for moral condemnation - a "few bad apples", of whom "an example" must be made.
Clearly this is not entirely wrong - those involved in corruption must be dealt with, regardless of who they are, regardless of their political affiliations. In fact, we should expect and demand a higher level of conduct from those who are members of our broad democratic movement and especially from those in public service.
But, sadly, we are dealing with something much more systemic than simply a "few bad apples". In an attempt to find a more generalized explanation for corruption we sometimes encounter syndicalist left-wingers unwittingly echoing "free market" right-wingers in their exaggerated suspicion of the state (or at least the democratic state in a capitalist society) defining it as inherently and in its totality "corrupt". "Power corrupts", we are frequently told - often by an oligopolistic commercial media that likes to conceal its own massive market power.
The idea that politicians and the state are, more or less by definition, corrupt is liable to undermine our determination to use state power (along with social activism) to deal decisively with corruption. It also helps to obscure the fact that where corruption occurs in the public sector there is, invariably, a private sector corrupter, a Glenn Agliotti or a Brett Kebble. For every black property tycoon working in collusion with senior public servants to lease buildings at hugely inflated prices to government there is typically a big bank. The bank might well not literally be breaking the law, but its own senior staff involved in the lease will know exactly what is going on. They will quietly earn inflated bonuses for bringing in business, while the bank chairman publicly condemns the corruption of the new "extraordinary breed of politicians."
Other explanations for corruption in our society belong to the anti-majoritarian pseudo-liberal current of thought. Corruption is blamed on some supposed generalized tendencies within post-independence, Third World liberation movements, for instance. Other explanations border on racial stereotyping, on the supposed propensities of the "new elite" (as if the old elite were not often deeply complicit in past and present corruption).
As it happens, the "new elite" is the key focus of two recent thoughtful interventions by Professor Njabulo Ndebele and cde Joel Netshitenzhe.
Writing in the City Press ("A meditation on corruption", 22 January 2012), Ndebele argues that the "new elite", since being installed in power in the post-1994 reality, has been tugged between competing imperatives - individual redress versus substantial social development, redistribution versus systemic transformation. Although he doesn't quite say this, Ndebele correctly implies that the competing logics of these very different imperatives were often blurred in language as if they were one and the same thing. "Transformation", for instance, came to mean not the radical transformation of the systemic features of apartheid-colonialism, but a touch of racial representivity within essentially the same unchanged realities - the same boardrooms, the same wealthy suburbs, the same elite golf clubs.
Ndebele argues that the "new elite" was increasingly torn between its own "personal material needs...shaped by historical deprivation" on the one hand, and the "social commitment that once gave meaning to the struggle for liberation" on the other. In Ndebele's view, "access to state wealth" meant that relatively quickly individual redress became individual entitlement and these values then trumped social transformation, side-lining it into little more than a "niggling ethical burden".
Writing in ANC Today ("Competing identities of a national liberation movement and the challenges of incumbency", 15 June 2012) Cde Joel Netshitenzhe follows a similar trajectory to explain corruption. He invokes concepts like the "sins of incumbency" and the problem of "growing social distance" between the new political elite and its mass base. Like Ndebele, he analyses the roots of corruption in the psycho-sociological challenges confronting an "emerging middle class" without historical assets to support large extended families, leading it to take on excessive debt. "Having dipped their toes in that lifestyle, but with no historical assets as are available to the white middle and upper strata, some then try to acquire the resources by hook or crook."
There are certainly strong elements of readily recognizable truth in both Ndebele and Netshitenzhe's descriptions. But that is also part of the problem - they tend to remain descriptions, and somewhat one-sided descriptions at that. As a result they are also unable to offer serious anti-corruption programmatic interventions, beyond the very important but limited pedagogical appeal for a change in moral values.
In the public discussion in SA about corruption insufficient attention has been paid to class struggles within our movement, and between our movement and incumbent capital, over the direction of our post-1994 democracy. In particular, there is a failure to recognize that the established white bourgeoisie did not stand idly by in the face of the new, post-1994 political reality. They continued to pursue the agenda of late-apartheid, namely to build a relatively substantial "buffer" black middle strata. This was already the agenda of big capital in the early 1990s negotiations period, for instance. It was no longer a question of preventing the ANC coming to power, but rather to ensure that the ANC that came into power would be hegemonised by the "doves", the "sensible moderates" who would distance themselves from the dangerous "radical populists" and their volatile "mass base".
Much has been made in certain anti-alliance quarters about the woeful consequences of "cadre deployment" - as if (as ANC secretary general, cde Gwede Mantashe likes to point out) the corrupt promotion of someone ill-suited and unqualified for a position on the grounds that they happen to be a political associate was "cadre deployment". But in all of this debate very little has ever been said about the systematic "cadre development and deployment" that key circles of big capital (both domestic and international) implemented in the immediate pre- and post-1994 period. How many key ANC-aligned individuals, for instance, were quietly taken out for internships in arch neo-liberal corporations in the United States, like Goldman Sachs? (Goldman Sachs has recently been deeply discredited, by the way, for its role in provoking and in profiteering from the Greek debt crisis.) Those who "benefited" from this neo-liberal cadre development were then deployed back into strategic positions in government. If I am not mistaken, at least two recent Treasury DGs were graduates of the Goldman Sachs cadre school.
The "social" (and of course ideological and moral) "distance" that cde Netshitenzhe evokes might not have been a conspiracy, but it was certainly part of a deliberate strategy. It was not just an inevitable psycho-sociological syndrome related to historical deprivation, to large extended families, and to the newfound privileges of incumbency.
By the mid-1990s, a key strategy for engineering "social distance" and for consolidating a buffer black elite stratum was the policy of "black economic empowerment". This amounted to a social pact between elements within the new political elite and established big capital. From the side of established big capital it represented in many respects a re-run of how mining and banking capital had once accommodated itself to the 1948 Afrikaner nationalist political victory. But it was also a strategy that was embraced and actively developed by a dominant tendency within the ANC and government (what the SACP has described as the "1996 class project"). For this revisionist tendency within the ANC and government, the creation of a new BEE elite was seen as an active counter-balance to the influence of the SACP, COSATU and the ANC's own township and rural mass base. The strategy found active ideological expression in key ANC documents, including the vulgarization of the concept of "revolutionary motive forces" - with the argument being advanced that all forces that "stood to gain" from the national democratic revolution "were motive forces". This amounted to a local version of the free market "invisible hand" credo that the selfish pursuit of individual satisfaction inevitably leads to the greater good of all.
The first wave of BEE advancements were not necessarily all corrupt (although many questions still surround key early BEE-related moves - notably the arms deal). But the canonization of "BEE" as a central programme of government brought into play a dangerous nexus between political office, personal enrichment, and established capital. The narratives of Ndebele and Netshitenzhe tend to leave out the critical last component of this corrosive, unholy trinity. Let me underline that I am not evoking established capital in order to deflect attention from the culpabilities of the other two components - those who brazenly declared that they "hadn't struggled to be poor".
However, unless we grasp the triadic nexus, this unholy trinity, we will not begin to understand the systemic roots of corruption in our society.
Nor will we be able to develop an effective multi-pronged counter-strategy. For instance, the "social distance" that cde Netshitenzhe and others invoke is not just a metaphor - in South Africa, in which we have not transformed apartheid colonial spatial injustices, social distance is also a yawning geographical reality. For those familiar with the childrens' board-game, our untransformed social reality can easily pitch the new middle strata into a political game of snakes and ladders, in which the snakes and the ladders are exaggeratedly long. If you land on the right square, by securing a regional chairpersonship in the ANC for instance, you might suddenly find yourself on a heady upward ascension. But if you lose your footing, you are liable to fall rapidly down a very long snake, back to zero and abject poverty.
This heady, insecure world of rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags opens up enormous possibilities for strategic (including corrupting) leverage over the new democratic state and over our own alliance formations by those who are well-established and well-resourced. The struggle against corruption and the material conditions that foster it has, therefore, to be a struggle for a much more egalitarian society. We have literally to abolish, amongst many things, the social distance engraved in our persisting apartheid spatial patterns through the accelerated planning and implementation of mixed-used, mixed-income settlement patterns. But this means taking head-on the vested interests of the established capitalist class (the value of their residential properties, for instance), and the venal interests of a comprador elite that has been promoted as a buffer against serious transformation.
Asikhulume!
Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st Deputy General Secretary.
Source: All Africa
The SACP was amongst the first formations to actively launch a mass campaign against corruption - A Red Card Against Corruption. Tragically, there are already martyrs in the struggle against this corrosive evil - among them Mpumalanga SACP cadre, Radioman Ntshangase, and Rustenburg municipal councilor and former NUMSA shopsteward, Moss Phakoe. Both were gunned down for their courageous stands against corruption.
But what lies behind this terrible contagion?
Various explanations are advanced in the South African public debate.
Often it is reduced to bad individual behavior calling for moral condemnation - a "few bad apples", of whom "an example" must be made.
Clearly this is not entirely wrong - those involved in corruption must be dealt with, regardless of who they are, regardless of their political affiliations. In fact, we should expect and demand a higher level of conduct from those who are members of our broad democratic movement and especially from those in public service.
But, sadly, we are dealing with something much more systemic than simply a "few bad apples". In an attempt to find a more generalized explanation for corruption we sometimes encounter syndicalist left-wingers unwittingly echoing "free market" right-wingers in their exaggerated suspicion of the state (or at least the democratic state in a capitalist society) defining it as inherently and in its totality "corrupt". "Power corrupts", we are frequently told - often by an oligopolistic commercial media that likes to conceal its own massive market power.
The idea that politicians and the state are, more or less by definition, corrupt is liable to undermine our determination to use state power (along with social activism) to deal decisively with corruption. It also helps to obscure the fact that where corruption occurs in the public sector there is, invariably, a private sector corrupter, a Glenn Agliotti or a Brett Kebble. For every black property tycoon working in collusion with senior public servants to lease buildings at hugely inflated prices to government there is typically a big bank. The bank might well not literally be breaking the law, but its own senior staff involved in the lease will know exactly what is going on. They will quietly earn inflated bonuses for bringing in business, while the bank chairman publicly condemns the corruption of the new "extraordinary breed of politicians."
Other explanations for corruption in our society belong to the anti-majoritarian pseudo-liberal current of thought. Corruption is blamed on some supposed generalized tendencies within post-independence, Third World liberation movements, for instance. Other explanations border on racial stereotyping, on the supposed propensities of the "new elite" (as if the old elite were not often deeply complicit in past and present corruption).
As it happens, the "new elite" is the key focus of two recent thoughtful interventions by Professor Njabulo Ndebele and cde Joel Netshitenzhe.
Writing in the City Press ("A meditation on corruption", 22 January 2012), Ndebele argues that the "new elite", since being installed in power in the post-1994 reality, has been tugged between competing imperatives - individual redress versus substantial social development, redistribution versus systemic transformation. Although he doesn't quite say this, Ndebele correctly implies that the competing logics of these very different imperatives were often blurred in language as if they were one and the same thing. "Transformation", for instance, came to mean not the radical transformation of the systemic features of apartheid-colonialism, but a touch of racial representivity within essentially the same unchanged realities - the same boardrooms, the same wealthy suburbs, the same elite golf clubs.
Ndebele argues that the "new elite" was increasingly torn between its own "personal material needs...shaped by historical deprivation" on the one hand, and the "social commitment that once gave meaning to the struggle for liberation" on the other. In Ndebele's view, "access to state wealth" meant that relatively quickly individual redress became individual entitlement and these values then trumped social transformation, side-lining it into little more than a "niggling ethical burden".
Writing in ANC Today ("Competing identities of a national liberation movement and the challenges of incumbency", 15 June 2012) Cde Joel Netshitenzhe follows a similar trajectory to explain corruption. He invokes concepts like the "sins of incumbency" and the problem of "growing social distance" between the new political elite and its mass base. Like Ndebele, he analyses the roots of corruption in the psycho-sociological challenges confronting an "emerging middle class" without historical assets to support large extended families, leading it to take on excessive debt. "Having dipped their toes in that lifestyle, but with no historical assets as are available to the white middle and upper strata, some then try to acquire the resources by hook or crook."
There are certainly strong elements of readily recognizable truth in both Ndebele and Netshitenzhe's descriptions. But that is also part of the problem - they tend to remain descriptions, and somewhat one-sided descriptions at that. As a result they are also unable to offer serious anti-corruption programmatic interventions, beyond the very important but limited pedagogical appeal for a change in moral values.
In the public discussion in SA about corruption insufficient attention has been paid to class struggles within our movement, and between our movement and incumbent capital, over the direction of our post-1994 democracy. In particular, there is a failure to recognize that the established white bourgeoisie did not stand idly by in the face of the new, post-1994 political reality. They continued to pursue the agenda of late-apartheid, namely to build a relatively substantial "buffer" black middle strata. This was already the agenda of big capital in the early 1990s negotiations period, for instance. It was no longer a question of preventing the ANC coming to power, but rather to ensure that the ANC that came into power would be hegemonised by the "doves", the "sensible moderates" who would distance themselves from the dangerous "radical populists" and their volatile "mass base".
Much has been made in certain anti-alliance quarters about the woeful consequences of "cadre deployment" - as if (as ANC secretary general, cde Gwede Mantashe likes to point out) the corrupt promotion of someone ill-suited and unqualified for a position on the grounds that they happen to be a political associate was "cadre deployment". But in all of this debate very little has ever been said about the systematic "cadre development and deployment" that key circles of big capital (both domestic and international) implemented in the immediate pre- and post-1994 period. How many key ANC-aligned individuals, for instance, were quietly taken out for internships in arch neo-liberal corporations in the United States, like Goldman Sachs? (Goldman Sachs has recently been deeply discredited, by the way, for its role in provoking and in profiteering from the Greek debt crisis.) Those who "benefited" from this neo-liberal cadre development were then deployed back into strategic positions in government. If I am not mistaken, at least two recent Treasury DGs were graduates of the Goldman Sachs cadre school.
The "social" (and of course ideological and moral) "distance" that cde Netshitenzhe evokes might not have been a conspiracy, but it was certainly part of a deliberate strategy. It was not just an inevitable psycho-sociological syndrome related to historical deprivation, to large extended families, and to the newfound privileges of incumbency.
By the mid-1990s, a key strategy for engineering "social distance" and for consolidating a buffer black elite stratum was the policy of "black economic empowerment". This amounted to a social pact between elements within the new political elite and established big capital. From the side of established big capital it represented in many respects a re-run of how mining and banking capital had once accommodated itself to the 1948 Afrikaner nationalist political victory. But it was also a strategy that was embraced and actively developed by a dominant tendency within the ANC and government (what the SACP has described as the "1996 class project"). For this revisionist tendency within the ANC and government, the creation of a new BEE elite was seen as an active counter-balance to the influence of the SACP, COSATU and the ANC's own township and rural mass base. The strategy found active ideological expression in key ANC documents, including the vulgarization of the concept of "revolutionary motive forces" - with the argument being advanced that all forces that "stood to gain" from the national democratic revolution "were motive forces". This amounted to a local version of the free market "invisible hand" credo that the selfish pursuit of individual satisfaction inevitably leads to the greater good of all.
The first wave of BEE advancements were not necessarily all corrupt (although many questions still surround key early BEE-related moves - notably the arms deal). But the canonization of "BEE" as a central programme of government brought into play a dangerous nexus between political office, personal enrichment, and established capital. The narratives of Ndebele and Netshitenzhe tend to leave out the critical last component of this corrosive, unholy trinity. Let me underline that I am not evoking established capital in order to deflect attention from the culpabilities of the other two components - those who brazenly declared that they "hadn't struggled to be poor".
However, unless we grasp the triadic nexus, this unholy trinity, we will not begin to understand the systemic roots of corruption in our society.
Nor will we be able to develop an effective multi-pronged counter-strategy. For instance, the "social distance" that cde Netshitenzhe and others invoke is not just a metaphor - in South Africa, in which we have not transformed apartheid colonial spatial injustices, social distance is also a yawning geographical reality. For those familiar with the childrens' board-game, our untransformed social reality can easily pitch the new middle strata into a political game of snakes and ladders, in which the snakes and the ladders are exaggeratedly long. If you land on the right square, by securing a regional chairpersonship in the ANC for instance, you might suddenly find yourself on a heady upward ascension. But if you lose your footing, you are liable to fall rapidly down a very long snake, back to zero and abject poverty.
This heady, insecure world of rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags opens up enormous possibilities for strategic (including corrupting) leverage over the new democratic state and over our own alliance formations by those who are well-established and well-resourced. The struggle against corruption and the material conditions that foster it has, therefore, to be a struggle for a much more egalitarian society. We have literally to abolish, amongst many things, the social distance engraved in our persisting apartheid spatial patterns through the accelerated planning and implementation of mixed-used, mixed-income settlement patterns. But this means taking head-on the vested interests of the established capitalist class (the value of their residential properties, for instance), and the venal interests of a comprador elite that has been promoted as a buffer against serious transformation.
Asikhulume!
Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st Deputy General Secretary.
Source: All Africa
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Moss Phakoe’s spirit must galvanise us
On March 14 2009, Moss Phakoe – a beloved husband, son, brother and father, a dedicated trade unionist and a committed ANC councillor – was gunned down, aged 52, in his car in Rustenburg as he arrived home after putting up posters for the ANC election campaign.
Moss Phakoe started as a shop steward at the ATC factory in Brits. He was instrumental in establishing the then banned ANC in the region, for which he was brutally assaulted by the Bophuthatswana police. He became an organiser in the National Union of Metalworkers, but prioritised his work in the ANC, becoming a municipal councillor in 2002. He served as a member of the mayoral committee until he was removed three times by Rustenburg’s then mayor, Matthew Wolmarans, for trying to expose corruption. He was a perfect example of what a revolutionary activist should be: serving the people, expecting no personal reward and determined to expose those betraying our liberation movement through crime and corruption, which robs us of services and rots the moral fibre of our society.
This week, more than three years after Phakoe’s brutal assassination, Matthew Wolmarans and his former bodyguard, Enoch Matshaba, were convicted for the murder and sentenced to 20 years in jail and life imprisonment, respectively. MossPhakoe’s tragic story provides a shocking insight into the crisis of crime and corruption in our country. He sacrificed his life for blowing the whistle on corruption in the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in North West.
Just before his assassination, Phakoe handed Wolmarans a dossier that implicated numerous politicians in acts of corruption in the municipality. He also had evidence of fraud in North West drought-relief projects. R33 million had been allocated for drought relief, but none of the money reached the communities in need. Instead, it was siphoned off through companies. Comrade Moss handed documents proving this fraud to the then minister for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka. Shiceka said he gave the documents to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
On the day of his funeral, the then provincial premier, Edna Molewa, said Phakoe’s death was a tragic loss of a loyal servant of the people of North West. She, Shiceka and the SAPS provincial commissioner all gave guarantees that investigations were at an advanced stage and an arrest was imminent. Yet for more than three years, MossPhakoe’s family and Cosatu’s North West provincial secretary, Solly Phetoe, bravely battled to bring the killers to justice. It meant march after march and endless demands that leads be followed up. Phetoe’s untiring efforts in this regard earned him so many enemies Cosatu was forced to hire bodyguards for him. Everything possible was done to delay the police investigation, protect the culprits and keep the truth from the people. Friends of the murderers even mobilised sycophants from the ANC to display the movement’s sacred ANC symbols outside court in support of the killers. Regrettably, those who bussed in these protesters remain members and leaders of the movement.
Allegations remain that others may be implicated in the murder, and Cosatu is continuing to demand the original report Phakoe submitted to be published and the whole truth be uncovered. We also demand the immediate release of a report by the SIU on corruption in 24 municipalities in the North West, which Shiceka promised the Cosatu central executive committee would be handed over but still has not. We need this to ensure those implicated do not go back to their offices to continue corruption.
City Press has reported that since MossPhakoe’s death, even more allegations of fraud and corruption in the province have surfaced, and are being probed by the Hawks. Former Madibeng municipal manager Philemon Mapulane was arrested and charged with fraud and corruption for allegedly receiving bribes for tenders worth R100 million.
Other Madibeng officials have been arrested and charged, and no fewer than 28 cases of fraud and theft involving amounts ranging from R61 000 to R30 million are being investigated. The best memorial to MossPhakoe will be to take forward the crusade he lived and died for – to rid our country of corruption and revive our traditions of selfless service to the people. We must root out the corrupt few who tarnish the image of the many who are decent and honest. Let us hope that all those facing charges of corruption and murder will now face the full force of the law – and that we see no more demonstrations of support for them.
Cosatu is campaigning that in Mangaung the ANC will endorse a call for those facing allegations of murder, rape and corruption to be forced to step aside while investigations take place, and that they only return to their positions once cleared. This is a big move that can help to clean up the image of our movement.
Cosatu has been in the vanguard of the fight to root out corruption. That is why we have set up Corruption Watch. We are determined to track down those hijacking our movement to make money, regardless of their connections, and ensure that they are brought to court and, if found guilty, punished severely. That is why we demand the Protection of State Information Bill. Although much improved, it must still be amended to ensure that officials cannot classify evidence of corruption as “secret” in order to punish whistle-blowers.
Cosatu has also called on the Protected Disclosures Act to be amended. Currently, this provides protection to employees only and excludes other individuals such as independent contractors and suppliers or recipients of services. Nepotism, patronage, corruption and greed are not only destroying the ethic of self-sacrifice and service to the people that has traditionally characterised our revolutionary movement. They are also exacerbating divisions and factionalism, which increasingly are not about ideology, but about access to tenders and contracts.
Leadership contests are now less about political principles than about which faction of which individual will advance business careers and fill bank accounts. The worst problem of all is the emergence of death squads. Political killings are on the rise, in particular in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. If this continues, anyone who speaks out will be silenced, the entire state will be auctioned to the highest bidder and we shall be well on our way to becoming a corrupt banana republic.
We owe it to Comrade Moss Phakoe’s memory to take a stand and say no to corruption.
Source: City Press
Moss Phakoe started as a shop steward at the ATC factory in Brits. He was instrumental in establishing the then banned ANC in the region, for which he was brutally assaulted by the Bophuthatswana police. He became an organiser in the National Union of Metalworkers, but prioritised his work in the ANC, becoming a municipal councillor in 2002. He served as a member of the mayoral committee until he was removed three times by Rustenburg’s then mayor, Matthew Wolmarans, for trying to expose corruption. He was a perfect example of what a revolutionary activist should be: serving the people, expecting no personal reward and determined to expose those betraying our liberation movement through crime and corruption, which robs us of services and rots the moral fibre of our society.
This week, more than three years after Phakoe’s brutal assassination, Matthew Wolmarans and his former bodyguard, Enoch Matshaba, were convicted for the murder and sentenced to 20 years in jail and life imprisonment, respectively. MossPhakoe’s tragic story provides a shocking insight into the crisis of crime and corruption in our country. He sacrificed his life for blowing the whistle on corruption in the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in North West.
Just before his assassination, Phakoe handed Wolmarans a dossier that implicated numerous politicians in acts of corruption in the municipality. He also had evidence of fraud in North West drought-relief projects. R33 million had been allocated for drought relief, but none of the money reached the communities in need. Instead, it was siphoned off through companies. Comrade Moss handed documents proving this fraud to the then minister for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka. Shiceka said he gave the documents to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
On the day of his funeral, the then provincial premier, Edna Molewa, said Phakoe’s death was a tragic loss of a loyal servant of the people of North West. She, Shiceka and the SAPS provincial commissioner all gave guarantees that investigations were at an advanced stage and an arrest was imminent. Yet for more than three years, MossPhakoe’s family and Cosatu’s North West provincial secretary, Solly Phetoe, bravely battled to bring the killers to justice. It meant march after march and endless demands that leads be followed up. Phetoe’s untiring efforts in this regard earned him so many enemies Cosatu was forced to hire bodyguards for him. Everything possible was done to delay the police investigation, protect the culprits and keep the truth from the people. Friends of the murderers even mobilised sycophants from the ANC to display the movement’s sacred ANC symbols outside court in support of the killers. Regrettably, those who bussed in these protesters remain members and leaders of the movement.
Allegations remain that others may be implicated in the murder, and Cosatu is continuing to demand the original report Phakoe submitted to be published and the whole truth be uncovered. We also demand the immediate release of a report by the SIU on corruption in 24 municipalities in the North West, which Shiceka promised the Cosatu central executive committee would be handed over but still has not. We need this to ensure those implicated do not go back to their offices to continue corruption.
City Press has reported that since MossPhakoe’s death, even more allegations of fraud and corruption in the province have surfaced, and are being probed by the Hawks. Former Madibeng municipal manager Philemon Mapulane was arrested and charged with fraud and corruption for allegedly receiving bribes for tenders worth R100 million.
Other Madibeng officials have been arrested and charged, and no fewer than 28 cases of fraud and theft involving amounts ranging from R61 000 to R30 million are being investigated. The best memorial to MossPhakoe will be to take forward the crusade he lived and died for – to rid our country of corruption and revive our traditions of selfless service to the people. We must root out the corrupt few who tarnish the image of the many who are decent and honest. Let us hope that all those facing charges of corruption and murder will now face the full force of the law – and that we see no more demonstrations of support for them.
Cosatu is campaigning that in Mangaung the ANC will endorse a call for those facing allegations of murder, rape and corruption to be forced to step aside while investigations take place, and that they only return to their positions once cleared. This is a big move that can help to clean up the image of our movement.
Cosatu has been in the vanguard of the fight to root out corruption. That is why we have set up Corruption Watch. We are determined to track down those hijacking our movement to make money, regardless of their connections, and ensure that they are brought to court and, if found guilty, punished severely. That is why we demand the Protection of State Information Bill. Although much improved, it must still be amended to ensure that officials cannot classify evidence of corruption as “secret” in order to punish whistle-blowers.
Cosatu has also called on the Protected Disclosures Act to be amended. Currently, this provides protection to employees only and excludes other individuals such as independent contractors and suppliers or recipients of services. Nepotism, patronage, corruption and greed are not only destroying the ethic of self-sacrifice and service to the people that has traditionally characterised our revolutionary movement. They are also exacerbating divisions and factionalism, which increasingly are not about ideology, but about access to tenders and contracts.
Leadership contests are now less about political principles than about which faction of which individual will advance business careers and fill bank accounts. The worst problem of all is the emergence of death squads. Political killings are on the rise, in particular in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. If this continues, anyone who speaks out will be silenced, the entire state will be auctioned to the highest bidder and we shall be well on our way to becoming a corrupt banana republic.
We owe it to Comrade Moss Phakoe’s memory to take a stand and say no to corruption.
Source: City Press
Sunday, March 11, 2012
A political solution that killed
Some of the most upsetting evidence heard by a South African court after the advent of democracy was delivered last week in the North West, largely unnoticed by the mainstream media. The testimony that ANC councillor Alfred Motsi gave under oath in the Mahikeng High Court should send shivers down the spines of all peace-loving South Africans. Motsi testified against former Rustenburg mayor Matthews Wolmarans and his bodyguard, Enoch Matshaba, who are accused of gunning down former councillor and trade unionist Moss Phakoe in his driveway after returning home from an ANC meeting in Rustenburg in March 2009.
Motsi’s evidence is yet to be challenged. The most chilling part of the case against Phakoe’s alleged killers is not the murder, but the events preceding his untimely death. Motsi’s version provided fascinating, yet frightening, insights into how the ANC under President Jacob Zuma is “dealing” with corruption.
In a nutshell, Phakoe stumbled upon evidence implicating Wolmarans – then the mayor of Rustenburg – in corruption. Motsi testified he and Phakoe compiled a dossier of the alleged corruption. As loyal cadres, they decided to first present their evidence to the ANC before going to the police. But nothing came of meetings with the ANC’s regional or North West leadership, or of a meeting with ANC heavyweights Billy Masetlha and Siphiwe Nyanda. They delivered their evidence to the offices of ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and then president Kgalema Motlanthe, all to no avail, testified Motsi.
After five failed attempts to get the attention of the ANC, Phakoe and Motsi delivered documentation to Zuma’s Forest Town house. Zuma responded by inviting them to Nkandla over the 2008 Christmas period. At the time, Zuma himself was accused of corruption and debates about a “political solution” to make his legal problem evaporate were abound. After travelling the length and breadth of the country to get to Zuma’s homestead, the politicians spent “almost a whole night” with Zuma and presented their evidence to him.
A month later, Phakoe, Motsi and other ANC councillors met Zuma, Motlanthe, Mantashe and other ANC top brass in Potchefstroom. They again presented their dossier of corruption claims against Wolmarans and were told that then cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Sicelo Shiceka would call a meeting “to solve the problem”. On the seventh attempt to have the issue addressed, Phakoe addressed a meeting chaired by Shiceka in March 2009, where he again presented his dossier. Curiously, Wolmarans, who Phakoe had implicated in serious corruption, was present. Before Phakoe addressed the meeting, Motsi testified, he looked Wolmarans in the eye and said: “Hate me, but don’t hurt me.”
Two days later, Phakoe was shot dead in a hit allegedly masterminded by Wolmarans and his bodyguard. If ever the ANC and Zuma needed a reason corruption should be dealt with by the criminal justice system – and not through some comradely political solution behind close doors – the dead body of Moss Phakoe is that reason. Here was a whistle-blower who put his life – literally – on the line to give effect to Zuma’s plea in his 2009 state of the nation address for citizens to “report crime and assist the police with information to catch wrongdoers”. Unfortunately, Moss Phakoe learned the hard way that Zuma maybe didn’t refer to corruption when he spoke of “crime” in his speech – especially when senior comrades are involved.
Taking into account the Phakoe case, Zuma’s own aborted corruption prosecution and recent turmoil in the criminal justice sector, the hard question that must be asked is whether the ANC is consciously undermining the rule of law in favour of “political solutions” for politically connected individuals.
Since Zuma’s election as ANC leader in 2007, corruption-fighting institutions have been weakened substantially. The Scorpions were closed down, which led to an outflow of skilled forensic investigators and analysts to the private sector.
The Hawks, which replaced the Scorpions, were in effect an amalgamation of the police’s serious and violent crimes unit and commercial branch.
The unit’s corruption successes, albeit laudable, are mostly limited to lower-level officials, cheque fraud or small-town crooks. Bigger cases, like the fraud trial against Czech mafioso Radovan Krejcir, seem to be falling apart.
At the same time, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has become the face of corruption busting in the country, although she does not have the powers to prosecute.
Those fingered by her investigations are rapped over the knuckles, but seldom face the consequences of their deeds in court.
The corruption and money laundering investigation into expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema will be an important test for the state’s will and ability to prosecute the connected and powerful.
Malema will have taken tips from Zuma’s manoeuvring to escape prosecution. We can be sure that he and his supporters will push for a “political solution” to make possible charges go away.
But this is not justice – as Moss Phakoe learned in such a brutal and undignified way.
Source: City Press
Motsi’s evidence is yet to be challenged. The most chilling part of the case against Phakoe’s alleged killers is not the murder, but the events preceding his untimely death. Motsi’s version provided fascinating, yet frightening, insights into how the ANC under President Jacob Zuma is “dealing” with corruption.
In a nutshell, Phakoe stumbled upon evidence implicating Wolmarans – then the mayor of Rustenburg – in corruption. Motsi testified he and Phakoe compiled a dossier of the alleged corruption. As loyal cadres, they decided to first present their evidence to the ANC before going to the police. But nothing came of meetings with the ANC’s regional or North West leadership, or of a meeting with ANC heavyweights Billy Masetlha and Siphiwe Nyanda. They delivered their evidence to the offices of ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and then president Kgalema Motlanthe, all to no avail, testified Motsi.
After five failed attempts to get the attention of the ANC, Phakoe and Motsi delivered documentation to Zuma’s Forest Town house. Zuma responded by inviting them to Nkandla over the 2008 Christmas period. At the time, Zuma himself was accused of corruption and debates about a “political solution” to make his legal problem evaporate were abound. After travelling the length and breadth of the country to get to Zuma’s homestead, the politicians spent “almost a whole night” with Zuma and presented their evidence to him.
A month later, Phakoe, Motsi and other ANC councillors met Zuma, Motlanthe, Mantashe and other ANC top brass in Potchefstroom. They again presented their dossier of corruption claims against Wolmarans and were told that then cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Sicelo Shiceka would call a meeting “to solve the problem”. On the seventh attempt to have the issue addressed, Phakoe addressed a meeting chaired by Shiceka in March 2009, where he again presented his dossier. Curiously, Wolmarans, who Phakoe had implicated in serious corruption, was present. Before Phakoe addressed the meeting, Motsi testified, he looked Wolmarans in the eye and said: “Hate me, but don’t hurt me.”
Two days later, Phakoe was shot dead in a hit allegedly masterminded by Wolmarans and his bodyguard. If ever the ANC and Zuma needed a reason corruption should be dealt with by the criminal justice system – and not through some comradely political solution behind close doors – the dead body of Moss Phakoe is that reason. Here was a whistle-blower who put his life – literally – on the line to give effect to Zuma’s plea in his 2009 state of the nation address for citizens to “report crime and assist the police with information to catch wrongdoers”. Unfortunately, Moss Phakoe learned the hard way that Zuma maybe didn’t refer to corruption when he spoke of “crime” in his speech – especially when senior comrades are involved.
Taking into account the Phakoe case, Zuma’s own aborted corruption prosecution and recent turmoil in the criminal justice sector, the hard question that must be asked is whether the ANC is consciously undermining the rule of law in favour of “political solutions” for politically connected individuals.
Since Zuma’s election as ANC leader in 2007, corruption-fighting institutions have been weakened substantially. The Scorpions were closed down, which led to an outflow of skilled forensic investigators and analysts to the private sector.
The Hawks, which replaced the Scorpions, were in effect an amalgamation of the police’s serious and violent crimes unit and commercial branch.
The unit’s corruption successes, albeit laudable, are mostly limited to lower-level officials, cheque fraud or small-town crooks. Bigger cases, like the fraud trial against Czech mafioso Radovan Krejcir, seem to be falling apart.
At the same time, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has become the face of corruption busting in the country, although she does not have the powers to prosecute.
Those fingered by her investigations are rapped over the knuckles, but seldom face the consequences of their deeds in court.
The corruption and money laundering investigation into expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema will be an important test for the state’s will and ability to prosecute the connected and powerful.
Malema will have taken tips from Zuma’s manoeuvring to escape prosecution. We can be sure that he and his supporters will push for a “political solution” to make possible charges go away.
But this is not justice – as Moss Phakoe learned in such a brutal and undignified way.
Source: City Press
Friday, May 13, 2011
A Rustenburg municipal councillor was killed within days of reporting a dodgy contract.
A Rustenburg municipal councillor was killed within days of reporting a dodgy contract. On the eve of the local government elections secret internal ANC and municipal documents obtained by the Mail & Guardian have opened a window on corruption in a major municipality—Rustenburg in North West.
The documents also show desperate attempts by local ANC structures to blow the whistle to the party and how these attempts may have cost Rustenburg councillor Moss Phakoe his life. Phakoe was gunned down in March 2009, two days after meeting Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka and handing over a dossier of allegations against office bearers and officials in the Bojanala District Municipality, which includes Rustenburg and Brits. One document, marked “secret”, is addressed to the Bojanala regional task team, which was part of a special provincial task group set up by the ANC’s national executive committee to deal with internal conflict and service delivery problems in the North West.
The document, understood to have been drafted in 2009 by ANC intelligence operatives deployed to the province, is a devastating assessment of the state of governance in the Rustenburg council. It notes: “Various law enforcement agencies . have been inundated with reports and complaints of rampant acts of corruption within the Rustenburg local municipality. The complaints relate to the inappropriate handling of tender processes, shabby and undeclared interests in such by council officials and or councillors . “The nature of the complaints illustrates that organised crime is prevalent . Criminals [and] corrupters have access and an upper hand over administrative procurement procedures and officials and are able to influence decisions on the basis of blackmail, bribes and extortion. “They are able to switch their operations, benefiting from small and major contracts in directorates where officials are easily corrupted, blackmailed or issued with unlawful instructions by their respective political or criminal principals to award tenders in favour of their principals’ preferred bidders.”
The document appears to have been drafted before Phakoe’s murder, but reflects many of his concerns. It reveals that the police were investigating a number of cases, including alleged corruption in relation to the outsourcing of the Rustenburg Kloof Holiday Resort and Conference Centre. The Rustenburg Kloof deal was one of the major concerns raised by Phakoe in his meeting with Shiceka, according to information obtained by the M&G from concerned local ANC members, who asked not to be identified. They said the contract was one of the key issues that had fanned the bitter rivalry between councillors in the municipality and the executive mayor at the time, Matthew Wolmarans. It seems that Phakoe drafted a report suggesting that Wolmarans, who chaired the committee responsible for recommending the successful bidder, had interests in the deal. It was this report that Phakoe handed to Shiceka—and it may have played a role in the ANC.s eventual removal of Wolmarans as mayor in February last year.
Wolmarans has denied having any interest in the Rustenburg Kloof bid, which was awarded to a company called Omaramba. But one of the key players in Omaramba, North West businessman Oupa Mphomane, told the M&G that they were friends who had grown up together, although he denied they had a business relationship. “The councillors fighting with Wolmarans are behind these claims. I have always supported Wolmarans through funding for his political campaigns. As a businessman and an active member of the ANC I support the organisation ... I funded the provincial conference and about 3 000 people, including the MEC and ministers, came, ate and drank for free at the Kloof at the afterparty celebration,” Mphomane said. At the ANC provincial conference earlier this year Wolmarans made a political comeback, returning as a provincial executive committee member.
Phakoe’s Kloof report, which the M&G has seen, describes how an independent company appointed to evaluate the bids recommended another company, but says this advice was overturned by the committee chaired by Wolmarans, which recommended Omaramba despite its lower score. According to the Phakoe report, one of the shareholders in Omaramba was Silvia Moeng, Wolmarans’s sister-in-law, although this shareholding was later distributed among other shareholders.
Mphomane told the M&G: “I had a disagreement with my business partner because he proposed to hold a percentage of shares for his employee, Moeng, who never came to board meetings. We discussed it and agreed to share the stake among ourselves.” Wolmarans said this week that he knew about the allegations but that they had never been presented to him formally. “I have only heard rumours of people asking me about tenders and my relationship with Mphomane. It is not true that I had interest in any of the tenders and I had already moved from the committee to do special projects when the Rustenburg Kloof deal was finalised. Those allegations were made by disgruntled councillors.”
He confirmed that Moeng was his sister-in-law but denied that he had any knowledge of her involvement in Omaramba. “I didn't know that she was a shareholder. I know that Mphomane is a co-owner of the business. I know Mphomane, but I don.t have any business relationship with him.” However, company records show that Wolmarans is a director of a shelf company with Mphomane. The company, Mega Works Trading Enterprise 171, was registered last year.
Local ANC members hostile to Wolmarans are understood to have sent a document to senior provincial and national ANC leaders arguing that Phakoe’s corruption allegations should be considered a motive for his murder. It appears that the police have taken this claim seriously. The M&G has confirmed that investigators obtained surveillance tapes from a garage where Mphomane and Wolmarans had a meeting a week before the murder. Mphomane dismissed suggestions of his involvement, saying they were part of a “whispering campaign” against him. He confirmed that the police had questioned him about his meeting with Wolmarans at the garage as well as about Phakoe’s murder. He explained that the two were on their way to another meeting and had met at the garage to share a vehicle.
Responding to questions about the videotapes showing that he was armed, Mphomane was forthright: “I'm a businessman; I always have my guns for protection.”
Source: Mail & Guardian
The documents also show desperate attempts by local ANC structures to blow the whistle to the party and how these attempts may have cost Rustenburg councillor Moss Phakoe his life. Phakoe was gunned down in March 2009, two days after meeting Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka and handing over a dossier of allegations against office bearers and officials in the Bojanala District Municipality, which includes Rustenburg and Brits. One document, marked “secret”, is addressed to the Bojanala regional task team, which was part of a special provincial task group set up by the ANC’s national executive committee to deal with internal conflict and service delivery problems in the North West.
The document, understood to have been drafted in 2009 by ANC intelligence operatives deployed to the province, is a devastating assessment of the state of governance in the Rustenburg council. It notes: “Various law enforcement agencies . have been inundated with reports and complaints of rampant acts of corruption within the Rustenburg local municipality. The complaints relate to the inappropriate handling of tender processes, shabby and undeclared interests in such by council officials and or councillors . “The nature of the complaints illustrates that organised crime is prevalent . Criminals [and] corrupters have access and an upper hand over administrative procurement procedures and officials and are able to influence decisions on the basis of blackmail, bribes and extortion. “They are able to switch their operations, benefiting from small and major contracts in directorates where officials are easily corrupted, blackmailed or issued with unlawful instructions by their respective political or criminal principals to award tenders in favour of their principals’ preferred bidders.”
The document appears to have been drafted before Phakoe’s murder, but reflects many of his concerns. It reveals that the police were investigating a number of cases, including alleged corruption in relation to the outsourcing of the Rustenburg Kloof Holiday Resort and Conference Centre. The Rustenburg Kloof deal was one of the major concerns raised by Phakoe in his meeting with Shiceka, according to information obtained by the M&G from concerned local ANC members, who asked not to be identified. They said the contract was one of the key issues that had fanned the bitter rivalry between councillors in the municipality and the executive mayor at the time, Matthew Wolmarans. It seems that Phakoe drafted a report suggesting that Wolmarans, who chaired the committee responsible for recommending the successful bidder, had interests in the deal. It was this report that Phakoe handed to Shiceka—and it may have played a role in the ANC.s eventual removal of Wolmarans as mayor in February last year.
Wolmarans has denied having any interest in the Rustenburg Kloof bid, which was awarded to a company called Omaramba. But one of the key players in Omaramba, North West businessman Oupa Mphomane, told the M&G that they were friends who had grown up together, although he denied they had a business relationship. “The councillors fighting with Wolmarans are behind these claims. I have always supported Wolmarans through funding for his political campaigns. As a businessman and an active member of the ANC I support the organisation ... I funded the provincial conference and about 3 000 people, including the MEC and ministers, came, ate and drank for free at the Kloof at the afterparty celebration,” Mphomane said. At the ANC provincial conference earlier this year Wolmarans made a political comeback, returning as a provincial executive committee member.
Phakoe’s Kloof report, which the M&G has seen, describes how an independent company appointed to evaluate the bids recommended another company, but says this advice was overturned by the committee chaired by Wolmarans, which recommended Omaramba despite its lower score. According to the Phakoe report, one of the shareholders in Omaramba was Silvia Moeng, Wolmarans’s sister-in-law, although this shareholding was later distributed among other shareholders.
Mphomane told the M&G: “I had a disagreement with my business partner because he proposed to hold a percentage of shares for his employee, Moeng, who never came to board meetings. We discussed it and agreed to share the stake among ourselves.” Wolmarans said this week that he knew about the allegations but that they had never been presented to him formally. “I have only heard rumours of people asking me about tenders and my relationship with Mphomane. It is not true that I had interest in any of the tenders and I had already moved from the committee to do special projects when the Rustenburg Kloof deal was finalised. Those allegations were made by disgruntled councillors.”
He confirmed that Moeng was his sister-in-law but denied that he had any knowledge of her involvement in Omaramba. “I didn't know that she was a shareholder. I know that Mphomane is a co-owner of the business. I know Mphomane, but I don.t have any business relationship with him.” However, company records show that Wolmarans is a director of a shelf company with Mphomane. The company, Mega Works Trading Enterprise 171, was registered last year.
Local ANC members hostile to Wolmarans are understood to have sent a document to senior provincial and national ANC leaders arguing that Phakoe’s corruption allegations should be considered a motive for his murder. It appears that the police have taken this claim seriously. The M&G has confirmed that investigators obtained surveillance tapes from a garage where Mphomane and Wolmarans had a meeting a week before the murder. Mphomane dismissed suggestions of his involvement, saying they were part of a “whispering campaign” against him. He confirmed that the police had questioned him about his meeting with Wolmarans at the garage as well as about Phakoe’s murder. He explained that the two were on their way to another meeting and had met at the garage to share a vehicle.
Responding to questions about the videotapes showing that he was armed, Mphomane was forthright: “I'm a businessman; I always have my guns for protection.”
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, August 6, 2010
Crime busters 'six feet under'
Cosatu chief Zwelinzima Vavi says corruption-busters have been assassinated but nothing has been done about it. He blasted two provincial governments for not acting against the killers of whistle-blowers and singled out Mpumalanga and the North West as dangerous provinces for people who had disclosed sensitive information. Members of the labour federation in Mpumalanga who asked questions on corruption "are now six feet under", he told a seminar on South Africa after the World Cup in Joburg on Thursday.
Vavi said one of Cosatu's leaders in North West, Moss Phakoe, was gunned down in his house in Rustenburg in March last year for fighting corruption at local government level. "Everybody from the premier (Maureen Modiselle) down are saying they know the killer and will arrest him, but no arrests have been made yet," he said.
North West government spokesperson Khotso Khumalo said Vavi had his facts wrong. "It is factually incorrect to say that the authorities and the premier know who the killers are, because that would imply that they're not acting." He said police were handling the matter.
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's spokesman, Mabutho Sithole, said Vavi should come with proof of his allegations. Sithole said many whistle-blowers in Mpumalanga were alive and well, and testifying in corruption cases. "Any truth (to Vavi's allegations) must be determined by a court of law. He must assist us and give us proof of the people getting killed, not just say what he reads in the media," said Sithole.
There have been unverified reports in Mpumalanga of a Mozambican assassin who was allegedly hired to take out corruption-busters. Several politicians were killed and their deaths linked to their attempts to root out corruption. Vavi also said some union leaders were receiving death threats. He himself had received a death threat after he said President Jacob Zuma was not acting on allegations of corruption against ministers. Vavi said the ANC had admitted in its discussion documents for its national general council that corruption was a problem in the party, but he was threatened with disciplinary action when he raised the issue.
Vavi's predecessor-turned-businessman Jay Naidoo on Thursday also called for the fight against corruption and the exploitation of power to be stepped up. He urged NGOs and civil society organisations to fight against the "predatory elite". "If you want an enemy it is these 'democratic' elites who will use military language to create more space at the feeding trough. "(Trade unionists of old) used military terminology that was driven by a purpose, but now it is driven by self-interest, which is to get into government and to get their hands on power," he said.
Vavi noted that people who were appointed in government "moved closer to the seat of patronage". He also said the political climate in the alliance had not improved since the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference.
Source: IoL
Vavi said one of Cosatu's leaders in North West, Moss Phakoe, was gunned down in his house in Rustenburg in March last year for fighting corruption at local government level. "Everybody from the premier (Maureen Modiselle) down are saying they know the killer and will arrest him, but no arrests have been made yet," he said.
North West government spokesperson Khotso Khumalo said Vavi had his facts wrong. "It is factually incorrect to say that the authorities and the premier know who the killers are, because that would imply that they're not acting." He said police were handling the matter.
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's spokesman, Mabutho Sithole, said Vavi should come with proof of his allegations. Sithole said many whistle-blowers in Mpumalanga were alive and well, and testifying in corruption cases. "Any truth (to Vavi's allegations) must be determined by a court of law. He must assist us and give us proof of the people getting killed, not just say what he reads in the media," said Sithole.
There have been unverified reports in Mpumalanga of a Mozambican assassin who was allegedly hired to take out corruption-busters. Several politicians were killed and their deaths linked to their attempts to root out corruption. Vavi also said some union leaders were receiving death threats. He himself had received a death threat after he said President Jacob Zuma was not acting on allegations of corruption against ministers. Vavi said the ANC had admitted in its discussion documents for its national general council that corruption was a problem in the party, but he was threatened with disciplinary action when he raised the issue.
Vavi's predecessor-turned-businessman Jay Naidoo on Thursday also called for the fight against corruption and the exploitation of power to be stepped up. He urged NGOs and civil society organisations to fight against the "predatory elite". "If you want an enemy it is these 'democratic' elites who will use military language to create more space at the feeding trough. "(Trade unionists of old) used military terminology that was driven by a purpose, but now it is driven by self-interest, which is to get into government and to get their hands on power," he said.
Vavi noted that people who were appointed in government "moved closer to the seat of patronage". He also said the political climate in the alliance had not improved since the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference.
Source: IoL
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Premier shot at after councillor's funeral
North West Premier Edna Molewa and her husband were shot at while returning from a funeral in Rustenburg, according to a media report on Tuesday. The Star newspaper reported that Molewa and her husband, Richard, were returning from the weekend funeral of slain Rustenburg municipal councillor Moss Phakoe, who was shot dead on March 14.
Since his killing, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) had denied reports of warring factions within the party in the North West. "We were travelling from Rustenburg to Brits when we saw two men standing on top of the bridge. As our motorcade drove under the bridge my car, which was in front, was fired at several times," said Molewa. "We were shocked. It was so unexpected. A number of shots hit the ground in front of our car. Sparks were flying. It is still hard to understand why this happened."
Molewa's security had been beefed up since the incident, reported the Star. "This is scary. It would have been terrible had any of the bullets hit one of the cars. My driver is still in shock, too. He says he can still smell gunfire. His windscreen was narrowly missed," said Molewa.
North West Safety and Transport Minister Phenye Vilakazi had formed a task team to investigate the incident.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Since his killing, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) had denied reports of warring factions within the party in the North West. "We were travelling from Rustenburg to Brits when we saw two men standing on top of the bridge. As our motorcade drove under the bridge my car, which was in front, was fired at several times," said Molewa. "We were shocked. It was so unexpected. A number of shots hit the ground in front of our car. Sparks were flying. It is still hard to understand why this happened."
Molewa's security had been beefed up since the incident, reported the Star. "This is scary. It would have been terrible had any of the bullets hit one of the cars. My driver is still in shock, too. He says he can still smell gunfire. His windscreen was narrowly missed," said Molewa.
North West Safety and Transport Minister Phenye Vilakazi had formed a task team to investigate the incident.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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