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Dear politicians. It’s not a conspiracy or WMC. It’s called accountability

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South Africa’s leaders are not prepared to volunteer to be subjected to scrutiny to dispel any suggestion of wrongdoing. Picture: iStock/Gallo Images
South Africa’s leaders are not prepared to volunteer to be subjected to scrutiny to dispel any suggestion of wrongdoing. Picture: iStock/Gallo Images

Will we ever reach a stage when our public representatives and leaders of our political parties appreciate that they must be held accountable and be subjected to public scrutiny and to a higher standard than ordinary folk?

Across political parties, a conspiracy theory is the primary line of defence.

The media always remain in an invidious position.

Because they are always the bearers of the news, the onus is always shifted to them to prove what they report.

Not wholly unexpected, they are often branded as part of this conspiracy project.

In some instances they are often associated with this dreaded White Monopoly Capital which is the supposed owner of the media houses.

One often wonders whether those who make this allegation ever bother to check who the true owners of the media houses are.

Imagine the Sunday Times, City Press or SABC or eTV/eNCA being owned by White Monopoly Capital.

Even those who claim that their phones are hacked and make pinky gestures in Parliament have the idea of a White Monopoly Capital media all against them to vilify them and damage their chances of ascending to higher office.

The current exchange between Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Public Protector is a classical example of things changing but remaining the same.

The same can be said of what the home affairs minister wanted us to believe – that a judge simply missed the point regarding whether he lied under oath or not.

The same can also be said of the famous colonial tweet of the Western Cape premier and the allegations of gratuitous VBS payments that supposedly benefited the deputy president of the EFF, the SACP and several high ranking politicians.

It is understandable that any adverse allegations against anyone have the potential to damage their brand or reputation which may be hard to repair and restore.

It is also important to appreciate that in politics and public life, opportunism plays a critical role in dealing with opponents.

There is therefore always a risk that the allegations made may be malicious and intended to damage an opponent. But we must also accept that not all adverse allegations come from opponents.

In fact in most instances it is rather an inside job. There are also allegations which come from public records or information in the public domain.

For instance the VBS saga arises from a report of a forensic investigation conducted by a regulatory body, the South African Reserve Bank.

The allegations against ministers Gordhan and Gigaba arise from court documents which are public records.

Something that is hard to understand is whether persons holding public office and political party leaders believe that their reputations are more important than their responsibility for accountability.

Their relationship with the public is one of trust. When allegations are made against them, this affects the public trust relationship.

The public has the right to become suspicious of them and demand answers.

They cannot in the face of allegations against them be the ones to tell us what to believe or not believe or what to listen to or not to listen to. Often it is them who make allegations against each other.

It is the very political parties and public representatives who are the first to report each other to the Public Protector or make allegations against each other.

When this happens, and more often than not, it is done by way of innuendo and suggestion.

In a sense it may easily be calculated to sow a seed of suspicion in the minds of the public. But must the public be blamed for being suspicious?

For more than eight years, we heard numerous allegations against former president Jacob Zuma. The same time of denialism became the order of things.

It was a Public Protector report and the subsequent court judgments that confirmed the suspicions of the public.

As matters stand today, we have a commission of inquiry to probe what appears a wholesale subcontracting of certain state power to a family.

More and more harrowing details of the happenings behind the back of the public are emerging.

A minister of finance has had to resign after it emerged that he had not been that truthful with the public about his meetings with this famous family.

We have a history of people in power abusing their power for personal gain.

Limpopo was almost on the verge of collapse and it was a Public Protector report that triggered an intervention to restore normality of governance.

When the media reported on the rot in the North West Province, the same conspiracy theories were advanced as a defence.

Hard evidence has since proved a total collapse of that province necessitating a takeover by national government.

No one would have imagined the rot at the South African Revenue Services and the lies the public were being fed.

If it wasn’t for some civil society organisations, the payment of social grants to the most vulnerable would have collapsed before our eyes.

Yet we are still expected to believe that allegations against public representatives and political parties are just conspiracies by detractors.

Over a period of time there were allegations that the DA has no regard for members of colour.

This was dismissed. With this recent great fallout, former members have come out to confirm this allegation.

Instead of the DA opening itself to investigate these allegations, it simply dismissed them.

The EFF has demanded evidence that its deputy president benefited from VBS Bank before it takes action.

The United Democratic Movement tells us that attorneys of its mayor in the Nelson Mandela Bay have confirmed that there is nothing untoward on his bank statements. This is despite the fact that there is a formal Hawks investigation.

The SACP has come out with guns blazing after newspaper reports that it received a payment of R3 million for its conference.

According to the spokesperson, the money doesn’t reflect in their books.

They also demand proof that they received the money. Surely, it may not reflect if it was paid through a third party directly to another third party.

Almost every single mayor of the municipalities who unlawfully invested public funds in VBS is not prepared to take responsibility.

The ANC has an Integrity Commission but it appears not to have benefited from its existence. Party leaders who are implicated have opted remain in office as they challenge the allegations made against them.

At the heart of their resistance is their own internal politics. The process of the Integrity Commission is not about guilt or otherwise.

It appears more intended to address a public interest as processes to determine guilt or otherwise are underway.

We come from the era of innocent until proven guilty. We are now in the era of judicial review and conspiracy.

The current Public Protector has become such a convenient excuse for those who do not want to be held accountable and subjected to scrutiny.

There is no doubt that she may not have acquitted herself well with some of the work she did.

The reality, though is that ideally the Public Protector should not be pre-occupied with investigating our leaders, particularly at the instance of other leaders.

The quality of the work of the Public Protector must never be an excuse for leaders to escape accountability and scrutiny for unethical conduct and a desire not to be held accountable.

The least we expect is that even political parties act against their own without being prompted, unless they have something to hide.

The reality though is that all political parties have their own internal feuds. Members fear each other and the possible use of party internal processes to unseat each other.

It is sad that those who pass the laws to ensure their accountability to and scrutiny by the public are the first to undermine the very ethical basis of these laws.

They appointed a Public Protector for us and now are the first to question her competence.

We do not seem to have leaders with good memories and who keep proper records of their business.

We also do not seem to have leaders who are prepared to volunteer to be subjected to scrutiny to dispel any suggestion of wrongdoing.

Modidima Mannya is an advocate and a former public servant

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