Painful is the wailing of a suffocated vision. Never has this pithy remark been more relevant than from amidst the socio-political morass engulfing our country.
Democratic South Africa began its journey well. We crafted a Constitution, one of the best in the world. It gave us the necessary vision for the new country we wanted to build. All kinds of institutions were created to assist us make real the ideals espoused in our Constitution.
Parliament passed various laws to bolster the new democratic project. Various government departments and state agencies were equipped with human and financial resources to carry through the dictates of our founding document.
Yet, all of this is crumbling. We are beset by a cancer so advanced and rapacious that it is destroying the very soul of our nation. As such, corruption has put into abeyance the grand vision of our founding fathers and mothers.
Its overlords are a wicked, self-centred and short-sighted leadership. They preside over the slow murder of our nation’s beautiful dream. Hear the wailing.
A case in point is President Jacob Zuma’s homestead. The recent visit to Nkandla by a parliamentary ad hoc committee has left many astounded and appalled after more than R240million of taxpayer funds were spent.
Nkandla is described by James Selfe (a visiting MP) as “a colossal cock-up”. He went on to say “so much money was spent, but so little value was added, especially for the taxpayer”.
Noting that “taxpayers money was looted” Cedric Frolick, chairman of the parliamentary ad hoc committee, said: “It’s clear some people took this as an opportunity, because it entails the residence of the sitting president, to get rich quickly.”
Of deeper concern is that the whole government apparatus, with all its mechanisms to effect checks and balances, did not put a stop to the Nkandla disaster much earlier, before so much money was spent. Imagine how many RDP houses, schoolbooks, critical medicines, etc, could have been financed.
To date, no one in leadership has assumed responsibility for this horrendous botch up. Mac Maharaj, the retired spokesperson for Zuma, belatedly says he told his former boss to prepare himself “for repayment”.
“If you have a problem, I’m sure that in your present position it won’t be difficult to raise ,” Maharaj reportedly said in an interview.
Apparently, Zuma refused to heed the advice nor would he shoulder any responsibility.
His guise is that he was not responsible for the upgrades at his Nkandla home.
But his argument that he didn’t ask for the security enhancements and hence should not pay falls flat when one considers that he must have visited his homestead many times and on each visit surely seen the new developments that he “didn’t ask for” taking place on a gigantic scale.
Why didn’t he protest as (Nelson Mandela) would have done and say: “We cannot live like fat cats”, whilst our people wallow in abject poverty? Why didn’t he ask who would pay – and put a stop to the whole fiasco?
When one considers the evidence pertaining to this “monument of corruption” the only conclusion possible is that pleading ignorance is neither plausible nor credible as a defence.
On the back of Guptagate, Nkandlagate and the other scandals, are fresh allegations against Zuma – of direct interference in the business of a state-owned company.
An e-mail sent by SAA acting CEO Nico Bezuidenhout says SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni called him in Paris just hours before he was to sign a R1.7-billion deal with Emirates Airlines to try to save our embattled national airline.
Myeni apparently told Bezuidenhout that Zuma had personally called her about the deal.
She made clear that Bezuidenhout did not have permission to sign off on it.
If indeed Zuma made that call and Myeni was not simply name-dropping in order to scupper the deal, analysts say it would be a violation of corporate governance and “interference in the due process of a board”.
Perhaps our president should take a lesson from history: that cover-ups, deception, denials, arrogance and belligerence only lead to a terrible end. What is done in the dark will always come to light. Just think of US president Richard Nixon.