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14 April 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath
Thought-leader series: corruption
2021 UFS Thought-Leader Webinar Series 

PRESENTS

a webinar on 

CORRUPTION IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE ENDEMIC PANDEMIC

As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the webinar as part of the Free State Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal. The aim of the webinar series is to discuss issues facing South Africa by engaging experts at the university and in South Africa. Some of the topics for 2021 include, among others, reimagining universities for student success; corruption; local elections, the state of business – particularly in the Free State. 

In 2020, the webinar series saw the successful participation of leading experts engaging on COVID-19 and the crisis facing the country socially, economically, and politically. This year, in lieu of the Free State Arts Festival, the UFS will present the webinar virtually over a period of five months. 

Second webinar presented on 4 May 2021

The second webinar for 2021 forms part of the UFS Thought-Leader Series, which is in its fourth year running. The scourge of corruption in South Africa has become endemic at all levels of the state and has rapidly accelerated the nation’s descent from a position of credibility that it once occupied during the era of Nelson Mandela. The economy is damaged; many state-owned enterprises are rendered dysfunctional, while self-enrichment by some political party cadres continues unabated at the peril of stark poverty and deepening inequality of the broader population. 
Are there grounds for optimism for South Africans who have been deeply wounded by the state of the nation? 

Date: Tuesday 4 May 2021
Topic:  Corruption in South Africa: the endemic pandemic 
Time: 12:30-14:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za by 2 May 2021 

Facilitator:

Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS

Panellists:

Director, Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa
Campaigning as Accountability Now 


Former Judge at the High Court, Cape Town

Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions, National Prosecuting Authority

Dean: Faculty of Law, University of the Free State

Bios of speakers:

Adv Paul Hoffman
Advocate Paul Hoffman SC, a native of Johannesburg and a Wits graduate, practised law at the sidebar from 1975 to 1980 and at the Cape bar from 1980 to 2006. He took silk in 1995 and acted on the Cape bench at the invitation of three successive judge presidents. After retiring from the bar, he was founding director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, and in 2009 co-founder of Accountability Now – both NGOs that promote constitutionalism. He is best known for his work on the irregularities in the arms deals, the unconstitutionality of the Hawks, and the bread cartel case in which a general class action was developed by the courts. He is the author of many articles and one book, Confronting the Corrupt, published by Tafelberg.

Judge Dennis Davis
Judge Dennis Davis is a retired judge in South Africa’s high court. He was educated at the Herzlia School and the Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge; and served as judge of the High Court, Cape Town (since 1998) and Judge President of the Competition Appeal Court (since February 2000). He is honorary professor at the Universities of Cape Town, the Western Cape, Wits, and is an extraordinary professor in the University of the Free State Centre for Human Rights. He is also Chair of the Davis Tax Committee and was one of the drafters of the Competition Act 1998 and the Companies Act 2008. He authored 11 books and held visiting professorial posts at the universities of Toronto, Melbourne, Harvard, Florida Brown, Georgetown and New York University. 


Adv Ouma Rabaji-Rasethaba
Advocate Ouma Rabaji-Rasethaba currently serves as the Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions responsible for the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) within the National Prosecuting Authority. She is the national co-ordinator of the anti-corruption strategic objective in the NPA (coordinating priorities for the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit, Investigating Directorate, and Asset Forfeiture Unit within the NPA). Adv Rabaji was admitted as an attorney in 1990, and later as an advocate of the High Court in 1996. She was previously Special Director of the AFU during its formative years, after which she joined the corporate sector in the area of governance and risk, followed by the bar, and practising as an advocate before re-joining the AFU in 2020.

Prof John Mubangizi
Prof John Mubangizi is Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State. He has been full professor for more than 16 years. From 2005 to 2007, he served as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). After that, he served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Law and Management Studies at UKZN for 10 years. Rated as an established researcher by the National Research Foundation, Prof Mubangizi is widely published, with more than 70 publications to his name – most in SAPSE-accredited peer-reviewed journals – as well as a book titled The Protection of Human Rights in South Africa: A Legal and Practical Guide, which is used by scholars, practitioners, and students of human rights law in South Africa. He has also presented more than 40 academic papers at international conferences.  Prof Mubangizi is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and has served as member and adviser to the ASSAf Council. He was also Chairperson of the Higher Education Quality Committee of South Africa and member of the Council on Higher Education. He also serves on various committees and in different ad hoc positions at institutional, national, and international levels.

News Archive

Professor launches his book, opposition parties attend
2011-03-22

Prof. Hussein Solomon
Photo: Stephen Collett

“We are good in opposing people, but we’re less good in opposing ideas.” This was how Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State (UFS) introduced the book launch of Against all Odds: Opposition Politics in Southern Africa.

The event was hosted in collaboration with the publisher under the title: Are opposition parties in South Africa in a crisis? This formed part of a series of dialogue sessions, organised by the Centre for Africa Studies, in the run up to the local elections.
 
Amongst those interested who attended the evening in the Senate Hall of the CR Swart Building on the Main Campus were various politicians, students, staff en a panel consisting of academics and the respective provincial representatives of the ANC and DA.
 
Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), acted as arbiter.
 
Proff. Hussein Solomon, author of Against all Odds: Opposition Politics in Southern Africa, also lecturer at the UFS, as well as Dirk Kotzé, Head of the Department of Political Science at Unisa, delivered enriching lectures on the stance and positioning of opposition parties.
 
Prof. Hussein, who spoke first, circumscribed the context of the political climate in the country, based on his book. “The problem that political science encounters is that everybody becomes experts on the internet, while they have no experience of what is happening in South Africa.” He said that when political parties in the country are under discussion, voters often allow myths and/or stereotyping to influence their concept of it. ‘’If there are no opposition parties, there is no democracy and people are deprived of their vote.”
 
Prof. Kotzé stated in his speech that it was not only opposition parties who had to make the government watch its step, but also the status that the country acquired, amongst others, from its connections, i.e. collaborative agreements such as BRICSA and the country’s inclusion in the G20. He left the audience with a question about how they were going to become involved in politics, and with his rhetoric question referred to options like social networks and movements.
 
Mr Sibongile Besani, the ANC'S secretary in the Free State, said the DA grew due to it’s swallowing of other parties; something he claims is taking the country backwards. He also described the use of personalities by opposition parties as means of association a weakness. He added that voters will continue voting for the ANC because they can associate themselves with the party’s vision.
 
In contrast, Mr Roy Jankielsohn, provincial leader of the DA, said voters and parties unite under their core vision for the country as like in the case of the ANC during the liberation struggles.
 
During the question-and-answer session, which followed after Mr Jankielson’s speech, Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo, upon completion and summary of the discussions, stated firmly that the opposition parties are in a crisis. “The start of the solution is to recognise the problem. That is why our democracy finds itself in the state in which it is; because the opposition does not fulfil the role that they are supposed to fulfil.“ Prof. Kondlo is the head of the Centre of Africa Studies at the UFS.
 
He concluded by stating that the economic basis in the country was not transformed. “We cannot say that people determine their futures if they posses nothing. Opposition parties must start to communicate at this level in order to table something new. Our democracy must become more inclusive at political and material level.”

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