Will corruption convictions fix our roads?

As the wheels of justice slowly grind on, we need to ask ourselves what sort of justice we seek. Modern South Africa, in theory, has this thing called restorative justice it tells everybody it’s interested in. Unlike old school “retributive justice”, restorative justice is not focused on punishment.

If we’re honest though, the force of wanting to punish corrupt officials is strong within us so will the outcomes of any corruption convictions leave us disappointed? Probably not. Assuming there are some convictions, restorative justice does not preclude jail time. It merely offers a different route in justifying it.

So yeah, I hope there is some justice and convictions lead to imprisonment but there’s something more concerning of late that involves one of the primary aspects of justice; repair.

Crime causes harm and justice requires the repair of that harm. Put practically, corruption limits hospital beds, school chairs and amount of tar on the road so any form of justice should aim at fixing that. Surely, right?

But this is hardly ever the case. Time and again, we hear of government departments losing court battles for awful decisions that have been made. Of course, they’re meant to cough up whatever the judge orders but it’s not like that money is coming from the decision makers’ purses. No, it comes out of their departmental budget, which in turn is our money…y’know, that tax thing.

Theoretically and democratically, if that happens too much and government spends too much money fixing the wrongs they’ve done, they’re punished by being voted out of office. Much like a CEO who makes a bad bet and costs shareholders their money.

Only in our new identity politics discourse, the shareholders of South Africa (and indeed many democracies) care more about who the CEO is and not so much what they do. So that disincentive mechanic to avoid overspending and mismanagement of funds is not really effective.

In fact, now that it’s not a disincentive, overspending and mismanagement is likely incentivised by other mechanics like goodwill and cadre deployment.

But the solution is not exactly glaring. It’s not like a corruption conviction will include an order to pay millions back in misappropriated funds out of the convicted persons’ personal accounts. That money is already sitting in Germany with BMW or Merc.

The savvy would have put any excess money in places where it can’t be touched. Also, it would likely cost more to trace it and spend years in court convincing a judge that it must come back than it would to just forget about it.

Maybe in the long run, tracing and claiming offshore money gained through corruption will be a disincentive to be corrupt but that hardly qualifies as the “repair” we seek from the harm corruption causes.

The repair has to be something more direct. More impactful. More visible. Even if the repair can never equate to the amount of money mismanaged, it needs to make an attempt.

So here I am, calling on prosecutors, judges and lawmakers. Let’s dispel jail as an adequate response to corruption. Include it as part of the combo, sure, but let’s not kid ourselves that sitting in jail is a suitably complete form of justice.

Let’s add stripping of any eligibility to hold public office and compelling them to spend the rest of their days working the lowest wage job in the department they oversaw.

I’m keen to see corrupt former MECs of transport waving flags on the highway. Let’s have corrupt education officials removing bins from classrooms. Why not have a corrupt health inspector sit at the door and tell people to sign in?

Perhaps they’ll even tell their former colleagues of the circumstances and those jobs, en masse, can improve for all who are stuck in them.

Whatever the outcome of my plan, simply seeing the convicted working back what they caused to be lost will be awesome. Don’t ever let them be promoted. Don’t ever let them “retire”. Don’t ever let them have an additional income. Probably don’t ever let them sleep at home.

It may seems pretty retributive but it goes some way to repairing the harm the crime did. So, however you’re going to cut it, putting the convicted to work in the situations they helped create…that’s justice.

Richard Anthony Chemaly. Entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer in communication ethics.

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