Little to celebrate on Human Rights Day as rights are looted

There seems to be little to celebrate on Human Rights Day, if the focus falls on the human rights guaranteed to all in our post-apartheid constitutional order.

The duty of the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the Bill of Rights in our constitution is taken very seriously by the courts, but wholesale looting of government coffers has eroded the delivery of even the most basic of these rights.

The diversion of the nation’s wealth to the pockets of the corrupt has resulted in the stripping of resources from the poorest of the poor, the loss of human dignity, failing healthcare, a flawed education system, and SA being recognised as the most unequal country in the world.

A World Bank report on Inequality in Southern Africa: An Assessment of the Southern African Customs Union, released in March, ranked SA first among 164 countries in the World Bank’s global poverty database, based on Gini coefficients of consumption – or income– per capita.

Too many politicians and civil servants have entered our public service for the purpose of self-enrichment, rather than to support the delivery of human rights guaranteed to all. President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address there currently is a shortage of 2 500 schools in our country.

He also put off introducing a basic income grant, pleading lack of means to do so, and wrung his hands when he raised the scourge of corruption.

He has put off addressing corruption until four months after the delivery of the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. The looting of state capture is estimated at R1.5 trillion. A great deal of public money has been diverted to the pockets of the corrupt in business, in state procurement and in positions of political power, whether in elected offices or state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

No proper steps have been taken to freeze and, ultimately, forfeit this loot to the state. The amount stolen could fund the basic grant. It could be used to build the much-needed 2 500 schools and improve access to housing and proper healthcare for those who are living in informal settlements far from clinics and hospitals.

The failure to rake back the loot of state capture is retarding the realisation of a culture of human rights in SA.

Instead, we have a culture of entitlement: the “it’s our turn to eat” motto of the likes of Dudu Myeni. The sentiment that “I did not join the struggle to be poor”, first uttered by Lulama Smuts Ngonyama, now ambassador to Japan, is shared by many of the kleptocrats who populate the corridors of power in SA.

The rot runs deeper. Delivering human rights involves a high standard of delivery of services that enable citizens to enjoy their human rights.

No water in the taps, an intermittent electricity supply, rivers of sewage in the streets, rampant gender-based violence, inefficient police, and prosecutors – all these well-known features of SA life combine to thwart our human rights, many of which were deliverable from the start of the new dispensation.

To deliver human rights, the constitution envisages and requires an ethical public administration that behaves accountably as it uses the resources of the state effectively and efficiently.

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The ANC regards the deployment of its cadres, loyal to the tenets of its national democratic revolution, as the means of effecting service delivery. Cadre deployment is a major cause of the state capture phenomenon.

A country of 60 million people cannot reasonably look to a tiny pool of ANC cadres to run the state. Yet, comprehensive control of all levers of power in society – not just government– is what the ANC is striving to achieve. A lack of competence and capacity is the result.

From those flaws flow the nondelivery of the houses, schools, clinics, and facilities needed to provide a better life for all. The combination of wholesale looting and cadre deployment has set back the constitutional project and its planned freedom, dignity, and enjoyment of human rights in SA by decades.

This is not the fault of the constitution. Its blueprint is sound. It is the fault of the politicians who have preferred to resort to corruption and cadre deployment, both frowned upon by the constitution.

If we want to enjoy our human rights more fully, corruption must be countered and cadre deployment in the SOEs and public service must end. The countering of corruption requires reform of the criminal justice administration to better capacitate it to deal with the corrupt among us.

The ANC knows this; it has called for the establishment of a new, permanent, stand-alone, specialist entity that is equal to the task at hand. NPO Accountability Now has put flesh on the bones of the resolution of the national executive of the ANC, by presenting suggested draft legislation that, if passed, would give birth to an independent Chapter 9 Integrity Commission, with a clear mandate to prevent, combat, investigate and prosecute the corrupt.

Doing so in a constitutionally compliant way has been determined by the courts in terms that are already binding on government.

To truly celebrate Human Rights Day in the future, we need to claim our rights and support efforts aimed at reforming the features of the state that will enable the effective prosecution of the corrupt and the delivery of the services promised in the Bill of Rights.

• Hoffman is a director of Accountability Now and was lead counsel in the Glenister litigation that set the criteria for corruption busting.