Police Minister Bheki Cele should never have been appointed

A far greater threat than the disintegration of the national grid is the crippled criminal justice system.

The SA Police Service (Saps) is in large measure nonfunctional. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is in critical aspects dysfunctional. As a consequence, while the rates of the various categories of crime fluctuate, the trend over the past decade is upwards.

The drama of Eskom’s slow-motion meltdown is a symptom of this deeper malaise. It’s rooted in unrestrained criminality.

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Whatever the flaws and political naivete evident in former CEO André de Ruyter’s secret investigations into the syndicates and politicians behind the billions being stolen from the power utility, there’s little doubt that while criminality is not the sole cause of Eskom’s failure, it is a major contributing factor.

President Cyril Ramaphosa may or may not be a crook. But what is incontrovertible is that he is an enabler of incompetence. Most damningly, Saps and the NPA are headed by individuals who are not doing their jobs.

Police Minister Bheki Cele should never have been appointed. He has been useless as a minister – all calculated flamboyance and extravagant statements for the television cameras he so loves, but poor performance in actually doing the job.

Despite his gung-ho machismo, his tenure has been marked not only by relentlessly dismal policing statistics, but embarrassing blunders every time he has inserted himself into an investigation, as he does all the time.

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Take the case of the eight women who were last year gang raped in Krugersdorp during a video shoot. Cele was immediately on the scene, performing for the cameras.

Saps would avenge this “shame of the nation” and there would be a merciless pursuit of the illegal miners from Lesotho who were allegedly responsible. Within days, more than 130 men were arrested and two were shot dead. Soon, all but 84 had to be released. Eventually 14 were charged with rape, sexual assault and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

All were acquitted when the NPA had to withdraw charges, conceding that there was no evidence to link the men to the crime. No-one has since been arrested.

More subtle in her failures is Shamila Batohi, head of the NPA. Appointed more than four years ago, to breathe life into an enfeebled, cowed and incompetent NPA, she has done nothing of the sort.

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A few weeks back, the NPA’s most important attempt to address Zuma-era corruption, failed out of legal ineptitude. The application to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta was dismissed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The UAE found that the request “did not meet the strict standards for legal documentation as outlined in the extradition agreement”. In other words, rookie errors for which Batohi, as head of the NPA, must take responsibility. But it gets worse.

Last week, the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein ruled on a keystone to the UAE extradition request, the Nulane Investments trial, where eight people were accused of ripping off R24.9 million destined for the Estina dairy farm project to support emerging black farmers.

The case brought by the NPA was so poor – Acting Judge Nompumeleo Gusha described it as “lackadaisical”, “a comedy of errors”, “stillborn”, and not meeting the “barest [evidentiary] threshold” – that all eight accused were acquitted.

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Again rookie errors, for which Batohi, as head of the NPA, must take responsibility.