We need to fix up our political system if the technical amendments aimed at rebuilding state capacity after the capture nightmare are to work, writes Ismail Momomiat
Nine years of state capture robbed our country of massive resources amounting to hundreds of billions of rands. It robbed us of skills and expertise; it left us a broken state with broken institutions and changed the culture of efficient governance. Today, we do not have a state that is capable of delivering public services.Eskom is still far from being fixed after 14 years of load shedding, and now we have new failures in sewerage systems and water distribution in major metros.
Some of the major institutional failures that created fertile ground for state capture were the strong support that former president Jacob Zuma enjoyed within the ANC and its tripartite alliance. It is clear that the state capturers succeeded in soiling our political system. They were able to capture the governing party, weaken parliamentary oversight, appoint willing collaborators to all kinds of key positions, hobble law enforcement and make key members complicit in corruption. They even managed to capture parts of the independent press.Before she was murdered and after having spurious charges levelled against her, Deokaran sounded warnings about organised crime in the state system.
Restoring the politics must be done to ensure that all decisions are made in the public interest. We must implement chapter 13 of the National Development Plan, which deals with the politico-administrative interface, and thereby protect public servants when ministers act in bad faith. Or we can shift to the opposite assumption: that both parties are guilty until proven innocent. Neither approach will produce the results we want.
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