More than 200 lives lost, 100 malls set alight, 1,400 ATMs damaged, 40,000 businesses affected and at least 150,000 jobs compromised in the chaos of last week’s violence and looting. Some put the cost to KwaZulu-Natal’s GDP at R20-billion, and nationally at about R50-billion.
Even in a robust, growing economy that’s an unaffordable price tag. For ours it’s a mortal blow, not only in terms of the rand value but also the damage done to our already battered investor confidence. But here’s the real kicker: much of that damage, theft and loss of life could have been prevented with the most basic crime and security intelligence. But such intelligence was nowhere to be found, because the people tasked with this are simply way out of their depth.
Our mantra at the DA, over the past two decades, has been the idea of fixing South Africa by building a capable state. Along with the other three foundational pillars for a functioning country – the rule of law, non-racialism and the power of the market economy: a state staffed by qualified, fit-for-purpose individuals who aren’t beholden to parties, factions and patronage networks is absolutely crucial if we want to turn our country around. We have not stopped beating that drum, and we will continue to do so until it has been achieved.
There are two aspects to building such a capable state. One is the staffing of the state, and this is something we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of words on over the years, explaining in great detail why the ANC’s official policy of cadre deployment is the very antithesis of a capable state, and that our country will continue to slide towards a failed state until this practice is abandoned in favour of merit-based and apolitical appointments.
But appointing the right people to crucial positions in the machinery of the state is not enough. If you want it to function properly you need to apply the second aspect, too: the principle of accountability. Because if you don’t – or can’t – hold people responsible for the performance of their duties, it doesn’t matter how qualified they were when you picked them.
What we’ve seen this past week from our government’s security cluster – particularly those tasked with gathering intelligence and acting swiftly on it – was an absolute failure to do the very basics of their jobs. In any other functioning democracy our ministers of state security and police would have had to clear out their desks, and it is unfathomable that President Cyril Ramaphosa has not sat both Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Minister Bheki Cele down for this talk yet.
Now we see the usual buck-passing that happens in the aftermath, with Dlodlo claiming she passed on alerts and intelligence reports warning of possible unrest and criminality to law enforcement days before the riots and looting started. We’ve even heard how these warnings were discussed in ANC NEC meetings prior to the attacks. But throwing fellow Cabinet ministers under the bus is not good enough. The buck stops with her and Cele, and both should immediately vacate their positions.
Dlodlo and Cele must be fired. There is no way their continued presence in this Cabinet can be justified. And following this, Ramaphosa needs to take a broom to the rest of his Cabinet, too. How many of the State Capture looters still hold positions on the executive? And what is the point of all those deputy ministers?
There has been plenty of talk in recent days of a possible imminent Cabinet reshuffle, and many commentators seem to think this will do the trick. Or perhaps they think this is the only card Ramaphosa can still play. But the truth is this government requires far more than a mere shuffling of the existing pieces around the board. We’ve seen that movie plenty of times under all previous presidents, where disgraced ministers are simply redeployed away from their failures. And finally, when Cabinet has no more hiding places, they are shuffled off to plush ambassadorial posts. This endless recycling of mediocrity and failure helps no one.
What has become clear this past week is that the President has no one in his inner circle telling him anything of value. His entire security cluster is made up of unqualified and often severely compromised individuals who have no business protecting our sovereign state from attacks. The inexplicable contradiction from the defence minister on whether these riots were an attempted insurrection or not is further proof of this, not to mention the fact that the corruption-accused Zizi Kodwa still has a job in the cluster.
Despite his obvious shortcomings, Ramaphosa is still commander-in-chief of our defence force. This means he needs to be handed security intelligence immediately, and then act on this intelligence without delay. If he had done so – and if his security advisers were able to feed him credible information – our country would have avoided much of the terrible scenes that played out in KZN and Gauteng.
He even conceded the failure of his government on live TV when he said, “we must admit that we did not have the capabilities and the plans in place, as this happened, to respond swiftly and decisively”. How can such an admission not have repercussions? How can those tasked with gathering intelligence and acting on intelligence to keep us all safe remain in their jobs when they failed so spectacularly?
A capable state isn’t something you can just wish into existence, as Ramaphosa seems keen to do. You can’t simply speak of your desire to build this kind of capacity, but then carry on doing what your party has always done by shoving every possible unsuitable but politically loyal candidate into crucial positions. You have to match your words with actions.
Dlodlo and Cele must be fired. There is no way their continued presence in this Cabinet can be justified. And following this, Ramaphosa needs to take a broom to the rest of his Cabinet, too. How many of the State Capture looters still hold positions on the executive? And what is the point of all those deputy ministers?
Building a capable state from the ruins of this ANC-captured state is no small task. Every democratic institution and state-owned entity has been infected, not to mention the civil service and scores of local governments. But the best place for Ramaphosa to start is his ineffectual Cabinet. And not with a reshuffle, but a proper clean-out. DM