The dilemmas and lessons of the Zondo commission

What began as inconsequential murmurs is, as is the wont of such things, slowly gaining traction as part of the daily opinion-forming conversations of South Africans from all walks of life.

The sentiment has it that the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture has outlived its usefulness.

Prominent among the reasons offered is that some of the jaw-dropping revelations notwithstanding, the public remains none the wiser about efforts to bring alleged wrongdoers to book.

In the immediate past, the sentiment was fuelled by Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola’s answer to a parliamentary question to which he was obliged respond. He reported that the commission has so far spent R356 million.

Attached to the sentiment is a view that especially in an environment of fiscal penury, the funds expended to the commission would be better deployed to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) whose labours do result in wrongdoers donning orange overalls.

The commission’s chairperson, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, stated in August, that it would soon approach the high court to apply for an extension of its lifespan – the approval of which is more than likely to come with additional cost implications.

Once the subject of admiration in every nook and cranny of society, the NPA today has a 20% vacancy rate, limited professional development and training and is in need of an additional 600 prosecutors occasioned by an asphyxiating recruitment freeze over the last three years.

The commission-fatigued and disenchanted also cite the fact that according to the commission’s regulations, “no evidence regarding any fact or information that comes to light” at the commission “shall be admissible in any criminal proceedings.”

And so, we may soon contend with louder calls for the commission’s closure well before it completes its work.

But is the commission a timeand money-wasting exercise in futility?

Is such a conclusion not mistaken; bordering on Lord Darlington’s description of a cynic in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windemere’s Fan – “a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing?”

There is a case – albeit a tendentious one – to be made about the commission as South Africa’s second Truth Commission, bar its reconciliatory aspect in place of which, this time around, sits, if you like, “retributive accountability”.

Revelations before the commission hold the possibility to strengthen accountability much as the stonewalling, outright intransigence and, if one can appropriate some poetic license, the kinda funny, arty and yet macabre manoeuvres by some witnesses provide windows into which we have gleaned into their barren universes.

They can be used to evolve a compact for responsible democratic citizenship, now and into the future.

There are equally enormous, unsettling existential and ethical questions that merit our attention as individuals and variously constituted social collectives.

How, for example, did South Africans, allow a situation such that a country – its imperfections notwithstanding – which was reasonably certain of its future a decade ago, is unsure of its prospects in another six months from now?

Some of the vexing existential ethical questions were eloquently expressed by a friend and director-general of a national government department in a private conversation this week.

They pointed out that the Zondo revelations suggest that hardly any of the beneficiaries of corruption put their loot elsewhere besides vehicles, other depreciating assets and perishables.

They were, of course, not suggesting that investment in productive assets would have justified the plunder of public resources.

They only sought to illustrate the hideous mindlessness of it all.

Which begs questions about the deep meditation the nation is well advised to undertake about the all-round outlook – political, psychological, ethical and much more – of the post-apartheid citizen required to catapult the nation to a higher trajectory, more so, how to summit such a tortuous feat.

So, if they are to be of some value, legitimate conversations about the usefulness or otherwise of the state capture commission ought to reflect on the lessons the country should learn, more than they agonise about public funds expended to the commission’s work; important as these are.

It might also be that in addition to probing the nitty-gritty of the litany of excesses in state organs and departments, Judge Zondo and the commission’s lawyers may need to solicit witnesses’ views on what could have been done to avert descent into the precipice so as to privilege the lessons; thus to strengthen our collective capacity to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, now and in the future.

The commission could, to the extent possible, also organise its work sequentially and thematically in accordance with the cluster system and three spheres of government.

For example, it could probe state-owned enterprises and dispense with them before proceeding to the national, provincial and local government spheres.

In fairness to the commission, it is taking flak for omissions that are not of its making.

Bringing alleged wrongdoers to book is not its job. It is the task of law enforcement officers and prosecutors who should require no tutelage about the prudence of taking the nation into their confidence on the high profile and public interest matters that have so far served before the commission; not to mention the vital need to restore public confidence in the integrity of institutions of the state.

Citizens who appreciate their obligations and responsibilities to the country ought to pressure the police and prosecution authorities to act as they must to bring lawbreakers to book.

The missiles directed at the commission, which conducts its business in the full glare of the public, are somewhat misguided.

And if the commission were to disband tomorrow, what would happen to adversely implicated parties who may wish to exercise their right to cross examine witnesses in order to clear their names?

Equally, what happens to the less intentioned whom the commission may have reason to summon in future?

• Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator. (mukoni@interlinked.co.za)

Mukoni Ratshitanga. Picture: Neil McCartney

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