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Reflecting on the state of corruption in South Africa

10 December 2021 | Story Sanet Madonsela | Photo Supplied

SanetMadonsela_web read more — Sanet Madonsela is an analyst and researcher for the Focus Group. She is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State.

On 23 August 2021, bullets hailed down on the motionless body of Babita Deokaran, the whistle-blower who courageously agreed to testify in an alleged fraud investigation related to a R300 million tender for personal protective equipment (PPE) in the Gauteng health sector. This tragedy brought to life the dangers faced by whistle-blowers in South Africa. Given the fact that corruption has played a key role in the contraction of the South African economy by 1,5% and led to an investor strike, we need more whistle-blowers to come forward, as Babita Deokaran, Angelo Agrizzi, Nomvula Mokonyane, and Athol Williams did.

According to Transparency International, corruption is rampant in South Africa, as the country only scored 44/100 on the Corruption Perceptions Index in 2020, warranting further analysis of the phenomenon. To be frank, South Africa has been rapidly deteriorating on this index with each passing year. Despite the establishment of commissions, new procurement rules, and political commitments by the President, corruption continues apace.

At a book launch co-hosted by Defend our Democracy and the Centre for Sustainable Transitions, a panel of experts discussed the importance of understanding corruption, the role of whistle-blowers in exposing corruption, and the phenomenon of state capture. During this event, Anatomy of State Capture was also launched. This 427-page book sought to conceptualise and synthesise the origins, development, and manifestation of state capture in the country. The book explained the foundations for understanding state capture, provided an explanation on how the looting of state coffers was accomplished, discussed the maintenance of legitimacy and its human costs, and provided an explanation of how weakened accountability can endanger a nation. Moreover, it dealt with how state capture mirrored the global patterns of corruption. This book is indeed a meaningful contribution by academics, policy makers, and journalists and the authors have made a meaningful contribution to this pressing issue, which is robbing the state of legitimacy, demoralising the general public, and forcing investors to flee our shores, which results in greater impoverishment.

Works such as Anatomy of State Capture have been painstaking compiled, claims substantiated, and evidence sought to ensure that it reflects the most accurate reflection. It follows in the steps of other great scholarship on the subject. Think here of Pieter Louis Myburgh’s erudite Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture, Jacques Pauw’s explosive The President’s Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and Out of Prison, Robin Renwick’s insightful How to Steal a Country: State Capture and Hopes for the Future in South Africa, or the illuminating The Bosasa Billions by James Brent-Styan.

Despite the overwhelming evidence presented in these tomes, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has been slow to act. Perpetrators walk free, safely ensconced in the knowledge that the NPA has been gutted by venal political elites who put party interests before country. The act of prosecution in South Africa seems to be motivated by political considerations and not criminality itself or legality. The recent resignation of Hermione Cronje, Head of the Investigative Directorate at the NPA, underscores the sad truism that those within the system seeking to make a difference, are increasingly frustrated by the lack of action and choose to leave … to the detriment of the country.

What international experience has reinforced, is that state capture is intimately linked to the issue of longevity of political power. It is only when a political party – which has been entrenched in corruption for so long – actually faces electoral defeat, that real hope emerges. In political defeat, the incumbent rot is jettisoned as cadre deployment ends and tenderpreneurship is given a bloody nose. The recent local government elections suggested that the country’s long-suffering citizens are prepared to turn their backs on a self-serving, incompetent, and ruling political class. It is hoped that this will be realised in the next general elections. We owe selfless heroes like Babita Deokaran nothing less.

News Archive

Bullying in schools: Everyone’s problem

2005-06-03

From left: Prof Gerhardt de Klerk, Dean: Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Corene de Wet; Prof Rita Niemann, Head of the Department of Comparative Education and Educational Management in the School of Education and Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS

It is not only learners who are the victums of bullying in schools, but also the teachers. Prof. Corene de Wet from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management at the University of the Free State reported, against the background of two studies on bullying in Free State secondary schools, that bullying is a general phenomena in these schools.

Prof. de Wet, who delivered her inaugural lecture on Wednesday night, is from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management which resorts under the School of Education at the University of the Free State. She is the first women who became a full professor the School of Education.

Prof. de Wet says, “A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative action on the part of one or more students. Bullying always includes the intentional use of aggression, an unbalanced relationship of power between the bully and the victim, and the causing of physical pain and/or emotional misery.

In some Free State schools there are victims and perpetrators of direct and indirect verbal, as well as emotional, physical and sexual bullying.

“Adults who say that bullying are part of the growing-up process and parents who set not only academic expectations but also social expectations to their children cause that victims are unwilling to acknowledge that they are being bulled. Many parents are also unaware of the levels of bullying their children are exposed to.

“Some of the learners were at least once a month the victim of direct verbal harassment, 32,45% were assaulted by co-learners and 11,21% of them were at east once per week beat, kicked, pushed and hurt in any other physical way. Free State learners are very vulnerable to bullies at taxis and on the school yard they are mostly exposed to bullies in bathrooms.

“Learners are usually bullied by members of the same gender. However, racial composition also plays a role in some Free State schools. A grade 12 girl writes, ‘There are boys in my school who act means against black people. When the teacher is out they take a red pen and write on the projector and spray it with spirits. It looks like blood and they would say it is AIDS and my friends and I have it.’

“Educators must take note of bullying in schools and must not shrug it off as unimportant. Principals or educators could be find guilty of negligence. A large number of educator respondents, 88,29%, indicated that they would intervene in cases of verbal bullying and 89,71% would intervene if they saw learners being physically bullied. However, only 19,97% of the learners who were victims of bullying were helped by educators/ other adults from their respective schools.

“The learners’ lack of trust in their educators’ abilities and willingness to assist them in the fight against bullying has important implications for education institutions. The importance of training must be emphasised.

Learners bully their educators to undermine their confidence. In Prof. de Wet’s study on educator-targeted bullying in Free State schools 24,85% of the respondents were physically abused by their learners, 33,44% were the victims of indirect verbal bullying, and 18,1% were at one time or another sexually harassed by their learners. These learner offences may lead to suspension.

“Educators are not only victims of bullying; some of them are the bullies. The South African Council for Educators prohibits bullying by educators. It is worrying that 55,83% of the educators who participated in the research project verbally victimised learners, 50,31% physically assaulted learners and a small percentage was guilty of sexual harassment.

“Every educator and learner in South Africa has the right to life, equal protection and benefit of the law, of dignity, as well as of freedom and security of the person. These rights will only be realised in a bully-free school milieu.

“To oppose bullying a comprehensive anti-bullying programme, collective responsibility and the establishment of a caring culture at schools and in the community is necessary,” said Prof. de Wet.

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