Alleged honourable members, you have let the country down

When your chief justice stands up and makes a statement, you should sit up and take notice. He, or she, is elected to one of the highest positions of authority. They should have the best interests of a country at heart – and they have law on their side to back it up.

What should never happen, is letting political parties, or the ruling party for that matter, take potshots at them – and getting away with it.

ALSO READ: ‘Nothing has changed’ – Zondo says parliament would fail to stop state capture again

But that’s exactly what has happened to Chief Justice Raymond Zondo after he put his head on the block and said parliament ignored his recommendations of the state capture report. He said because of this, it was inevitable it would happen again.

Zondo accused parliament of failing to act and not protecting South Africa from corruption and another Gupta-style state capture, a year since he submitted his commission’s report. He’s right.

What exactly has been done about all those implicated in state capture? Sweet nothing. In fact, parliament now wants to meet him to take him to task over the issue.

There is only one issue, “honourable” members of parliament … why haven’t you done anything about it? For more than three years, hundreds of witnesses and 159 109 pages and one exabyte of data as evidence was submitted, costing the taxpayer more than R1 billion, and not much has come of it.

ALSO READ: If ANC implements Zondo’s findings before elections, ‘it might rock the boat for them’

There’s been few arrests, the court cases levelled at those implicated have fizzled out and mostly disappeared and looting continues on a daily basis. We are ripe for the picking again.

At a Human Sciences Research Council symposium last week, Zondo said: “That state capture could happen again if another group attempted it.” Worse yet, “it would succeed because parliament would again not be able to stop it”.

Alleged honourable members, you have let the country down. There’s not much honour on show here.