Wheels are coming off - Nelson Mandela Foundation
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has released a hard-hitting statement as the state capture case is being heard in the Gauteng High Court.
|||Johannesburg – It was time for those in power in South Africa to account for the crippling government as the wheels had begun to fall off the vehicle of the democratic state, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Tuesday.
In a hard-hitting statement released on Tuesday, as President Jacob Zuma’s application to interdict the so-called “state capture” report by the Public Protector was being heard in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, the foundation said it supported everyone who came out demanding to hold to account those responsible for “compromising our democratic state and looting its resources”.
The country was reaping the results of personalising state matters around one leader, it said.
“Twenty years since Nelson Mandela signed South Africa’s Constitution into law and as the third anniversary of his passing approaches, it is painful for us at the Nelson Mandela Foundation to bear witness to the wheels coming off the vehicle of our state,” said the NMF.
“We have seen a weakening of critical institutions such as the South African Revenue Service (Sars), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and law enforcement bodies due to political meddling for private interests. We are reaping the results of a political trend of personalising matters of state around a single individual leader. This in a constitutional democracy is to be deplored.”
With the wheels of the democratic state having begun to fall off, other critical institutions had broken off to follow suit, compromising the ability of the state to serve its people, the foundation added.
“A battle now rages to keep Sarsd attached to the vehicle of state. What public discourse has described as ‘state capture’ by private and political interests is, we believe, a real threat to the republic.”
The NMF said another wheel that had come off was that of the public education system which “had never been fully attached, but the failures of the last two decades threaten that it rolls away”.
Schools, especially those in townships and rural areas, “have largely been captured for political interests and have deteriorated to unimaginable levels”, leading to a poor and deteriorating education system.
“And now universities are being brought to their knees as they lurch from crisis to crisis while a semblance of normality is enforced under what are effectively states of emergency. This is not sustainable for any education system. The potential collapse of universities will damage our democracy to its core.”
The NMF urged the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) to take the necessary steps to ensure that the vehicle of state was protected and placed in “safe and capable hands”.
The organisation supported the call for a national convention of stakeholders to begin to evaluate the country’s future and “beyond the unsustainable stresses of the moment”.
The state report, which former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said was final, contains her findings on allegations that the politically connected and controversial Gupta family yielded vast influence over executive decisions. She finalised the report before leaving office last month.
Zuma, who has strong ties to the wealthy Gupta family, applied for an interdict to halt the release of the report, three days after he demanded an undertaking from Madonsela that she would not wrap up her investigation until he had been allowed to question witnesses in the investigation.
The president complained that he was not given enough time to respond. Opposition parties have intervened to oppose Zuma’s application, with most accusing him of applying delay tactics to ensure that the report does not see the light of day.
The application is being heard by a full bench of judges.
African News Agency