Cyril must walk the talk on corruption

Are we winning the war against corruption?

That’s the question all South Africans (except the guilty) need to consider seriously, as the much vaunted “New Dawn” of President Cyril Ramaphosa seemingly fades back into the old ANC looting darkness.

After almost five years of continuous promises from Ramaphosa to get tough on the illegality, there have still been few prosecutions and no convictions of the highprofile alleged looters.

Many cases stumble around for years in an investigative wilderness – or so it seems to the outside observer.

This week, one of the top legal eagles brought in to run the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) campaign to bring the corrupt to book, decided, apparently, to throw in the towel. Hermione Cronje resigned as Investigating Directorate (ID) head, a step analysts and experts describe as “worrying”.

Although the resignation only becomes effective in March next year, speculation is that Cronje has had enough… enough of not been given enough resources to do her job properly but, more importantly, not given the political support she and the office need to bring recalcitrant civil servants in line when it comes to evidence-gathering and launching prosecutions.

ALSO READ: The scandalous ‘sale’ of SOEs plagued by corruption, inept leadership and theft

If the NPA is indeed losing focus and momentum, then it will start to look like a rerun of the Scorpions fiasco, when the elite unit was disbanded by the ANC… perhaps because it was starting to do its job too well?

Prosecutions are long overdue in many cases and, while the evidence which emerged from the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture was riveting confirmation of the widespread rot in government, it is starting to seem as though the whole exercise may have been more acting than action.

Ramaphosa needs to re-energise and fully back and resource honest cops and prosecutors. Otherwise, history may regard him as an accomplice through omission and inaction.