Ramaphosa’s Sona must deal with corruption, says Paul Hoffman

The State of the Nation Address (Sona) sets out what is going to be done by government in the year ahead. This year, for the first time, Sona will be delivered from the Cape Town City Hall, due to the fire damage at parliament.

Sona has been preceded by the delivery of the first two tranches of the state capture commission report and by the release of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report on “covidpreneurism” – the abuse of the procurement processes in the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other goods and services needed to counter the Covid pandemic.

The common factor between these two reports is that both reflect a high level of serious corruption in SA – something that threatens our hard-won constitutional order. The threat has increased considerably since March 2011, when the highest court laid down the criteria for effective and efficient corruption busting.

These criteria are known by the acronym “Stir”, a specialised entity of well-trained experts who are independent and properly resourced.

Government has no plan as to what it will do with the findings of the SIU and wants to delay reporting to parliament on its attitude to the recommendations made in the Constitutional Court.

This is not a good enough response to all the corruption cases that need attention now. The facts are clear: state capture happened and is still ongoing, corruption is rife and a plan of action is needed.

The president, in delivering Sona, will be hard pressed to ignore the following:

• The resolution of the national executive committee of the ANC announced on 4 August, 2020, in which Cabinet was instructed to establish a new, permanent, specialised and independent anticorruption entity.

• The draft legislation and constitutional amendment proffered by Accountability Now in 2021, fleshed out the ANC resolution in a way that is constitutionally compliant by recognising the binding nature of the judgment in the 2011 Glenister case.

(The Glenister litigation challenged proposed legislation that envisioned disbanding the Directorate of Special Operations, the Scorpions, and relocating its anticorruption policing capacity from the National Prosecuting Authority to the South African Police Service.)

• The efforts of the Democratic Alliance to prepare a private member’s Bill that addresses the shortcomings of the Hawks who are supposed to investigate serious corruption, but have not.
• The recommendations of the ConCourt regarding the need to counter corruption in the procurement field.

Bills which synthesise these initiatives should be placed before parliament without delay, the public participation process should be started and the cooperation of all political parties must be elicited.

With cooperation, it is feasible to process the Bills in months and have an entity that emerges from the reform initiative, operational this year.

What the president needs to do in his Sona is announce that government is aware of the matters dealt with in the bullet points and it is ready to seek synthesis of these ideas for reforming the criminal justice administration, to render it fit to counter serious corruption in a constitutionally compliant manner.

It is the sworn duty of the president to pay attention to the urgent need for reform of the anti-corruption machinery of state. He must act on implementing the necessary reforms.

Announcing his plans in Sona is what the citizens expect of him. Thirty-two years ago, Madiba spelt out his vision for freedom, justice and democracy under the rule of law in SA.

Now, Sona will be delivered by Cyril Ramaphosa, the very man who held the microphone for Madiba. May he draw inspiration from his predecessor by striking a mighty blow against the corrupt.

Hoffman is a director of Accountability Now. He was lead counsel in the Glenister litigation. Read his book, Countering the Corrupt, available free at acountabilitynow.org.za