EDITORIAL BY THULI MADONSELA
Rooting Out
corruption Less than a year into his presidency, President Nelson Mandela spoke boldly and decisively about corruption in SA.
N
elson Mandela’s concern about corruption was immediate and his actions to curtail it swift and decisive. Less than a year into his presidency, President Nelson Mandela spoke boldly and decisively about corruption. In his closing address following the debate on his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February 1995, Mandela said: “The threat that corrupt norms implanted by apartheid may survive and overwhelm us as we set about building on new values, is one that alarms us. It is a threat that, as a government, we are determined to forestall. The Cabinet is finalising a Code of Conduct for its members, a code that shall be firmly applied.
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“However, if the sanctions against corrupt practices are not carried out in every corner with equal fervour – government and civil service, political parties, private business and non-governmental organisations – this scourge will remain with us.”
It is our time to step up and show up to fix the challenges of our time.
It’s worth noting that Mandela understood that the inherited system had seeds of corruption, which, if not rooted out, were bound to poison the future. He also understood that corruption was linked to ethical lapses and
that members of the executive were not immune to it, hence the prioritisation of the Code of Conduct for Cabinet members. This is in contrast to anticorruption pronouncements and efforts at the highest political level in the last few years. Such pronouncements and efforts have tended to focus on the conduct of public officials with concomitant measures incorporating the prohibition of public servants from doing business with the state. As Public Protector for seven years, I was exposed to a lot of looting of state resources through proxies and kickbacks that include donations to organisations and foundations linked to politicians or their family members or partners.
