Politicians must face the music

Two years and one month after the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture had its first sitting, arrests related to evidence given at the commission were made. The biggest catch around the Free State’s asbestos scandal must be the head of Blackhead Consulting, Edwin Sodi.

Sodi’s company received a R255 million tender from the Free State human settlements department in 2013 for an audit on asbestos roofs. Even the usually inept public protector’s office came to the conclusion that the tender was awarded unlawfully. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has finally made good on its promises to act after getting its ducks in a row.

The biggest sigh of relief, though, must have been the one coming from the presidential residence, Mahlamba Ndlopfu, because this was President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ticket into the presidency, fighting the corruption monster that had defined the “nine wasted years” before he took over. The gravity of this moment must not be lost on South Africans.

This is South Africa fighting back. The arrests do not mean convictions are guaranteed, but they do signify a turning moment in South African politics, that corruption is punishable by law, in practice, and not just on paper.

This particular Free State tender has all the hallmarks of politicians and their enforcers brazenly looting directly from the poor. But what is worse is that even after the auditor-general flagged the tender in 2015, the Free State human settlement department still went ahead and made payments totalling a further R139 million.

The premier of the Free State province at the time was ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, the elephant in the courtroom that Sodi and his co-accused appeared in. The asbestos audit scandal happened right in the middle of the nine “wasted” years of Jacob Zuma’s administration.

It is no surprise that the auditor-general was ignored. State capture was based on taking away the capability and capacity of state institutions to do their jobs, thus enabling corruption. But the brazenness of the looting in the asbestos scandal beggars belief. Even after R230 million had been paid to Blackhead Consulting on a project that was clearly unlawful, the consulting firm still had the audacity to take government to court for the settling of the R25 million balance.

Last week the country lost Lt-Col Charl Kinnear to a suspected assassination. The Western Cape Anti-Gang unit section commander was the third colonel of the South African Police Service to be killed recently. How does his killing relate to the Free State asbestos scandal arrests?

The ecosystem that allowed the auditor-general to be ignored in 2015 when he flagged the asbestos tender is the same one that allowed the likes of former Crime Intelligence head Richard Mdluli to weaken the SA Police Service, leaving the likes of Kinnear exposed. The people who were in charge during the nine wasted are ultimately responsible for giving Sodi and his associates over R200 million of taxpayers’ money for work which was not performed.

Sodi and his co-accused must face the music, but the task of rebuilding a capable state will be undermined if those in charge during that period do not join him in the dock. The atmosphere that allows looting to happen on a scale as huge as what occurred during state capture was a deliberate construct the genesis of which is political.

The Vrede Dairy farm looting and the asbestos scandal happened on Magashule’s political watch in the Free State. The corrupt businessmen must face the music, but the NPA must help by ensuring the politicians face the music, too.

Sydney Majoko.

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