by Justin Foxton | Feb 8, 2019 | Crime & Corruption
Angelo Agrizzi has put a new face to the rot of corruption
in South Africa. He is forever stuck in our minds as a corpulent manifestation of
the excesses he so minutely detailed at the Zondo Commission into State Capture.
But BOSASA, the Guptas, Jacob Zuma and any other
high-profile individuals or organisations that emerge from these commissions represent
only a part of the corruption story in South Africa. Over the past few years I
have worked with and/or mentored several SMME’s – businesses that typically turnover
less than R10 million per annum. Each one has told me their own painful stories
of how they have had to play the “tender game” to survive. Whether they are in
waste management, building, consulting, electrical contracting you name it, if
they are supplying government (or indeed the private sector for that matter),
they have a story to tell of corruption.
Corruption is our malignant cancer that doesn’t just exist amongst the big players. It has spread into every province, every city, every municipality, town and village. It is a part of South African’s every day, lived reality. It has infected every sector from construction to music (allegedly, bands have to bribe judges to win a SAMA music award.)
This stuff will never make it to the Zondo Commission and most
of it will never see a courtroom. But it
is killing us. Because corruption is not something we do per se, it has become
a part of who we are – of what makes us South African. If you don’t believe me,
ask a small business owner. Or easier yet, ask your friends and family.
The good news is that at our end of corruption – the “little
people’s” end – there is stuff we can do to put an end to it. You may not like
what I am going to say, but if we all do our bit it will help to save our
country. We will need to be prepared to spend time in jail if we are caught
drinking and driving, because we refuse to pay a bribe. We will need to be
prepared to report anyone who asks us for a bribe. I suggest SAPS plus the
Corruption Watch hotline 0800 023 456. The more detail we can
provide the better. We will need to do the same with our friends and family who
are engaged in corruption.
If we are not prepared to tackle corruption ourselves, then
we can’t say that the likes of Agrizzi, Watson, Gupta, Zuma or anyone else is solely
to blame for the ruin of South Africa at the hands of the corrupt.
We are too.
by Justin Foxton | Aug 18, 2018 | Citizen Participation
“It may not always feel like it but South Africa is in a better place than it was this time in 2017 – and the media played a critical role in getting the country to this point.” Jessica Bezuidenhout: “Journalism in a time of State Capture” Daily Maverick 15 August 2018
I feel extremely challenged as I read the stories of the whistleblowers who brought #GuptaLeaks and State Capture to light. Some of them spoke at this week’s 10XDaily Maverick Media Gathering in Cape Town. The #Guptaleaks pair appeared for the first time in a pre-recorded interview from an unknown location outside South Africa, faces blacked out and voices distorted to protect their identity. Ex-Trillian CEO Bianca Goodson appeared with Eskom’s former head of legal and compliance, Suzanne Daniels. These (extra)ordinary people – amongst many others – risked their lives and careers to help save South Africa from ruin. Then there are the journalists and editors who work with the whistle-blowers to bring their stories into the public domain. This too is gritty work. Without their skill and bravery nothing would come to light.
I feel challenged by these people’s work because – whilst I am enjoying the enormous benefits of living in South Africa – there are people out there putting their lives on the line to ensure that I continue to do so. They have been willing to sacrifice their place in this country – and indeed their personal safety – for you and me. What kind of person is willing to give up everything for their country and their people?
During the Daily Maverick Gathering, SAFM host Stephen Grootes hosted a panel discussion with some of the country’s top media minds; Kate Skinner, executive director of SANEF, Mondli Makhanya, editor at City Press, Adriaan Basson, editor at News24 and Stefaans Brummer from amaBhungane. They all agreed that the role of a free press was as important as ever before and entities such as the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and the Daily Maverick need our support to keep doing the exceptional investigative work that they are doing.
We can’t all be whistleblowers and journos, but we must get behind these brave South Africans and help them to do the work of upholding democracy. amaBhungane (“…a non-profit newsroom that exposes wrongdoing, empowering people to hold power to account”) and Daily Maverick are doing superb work. Pick one, click on a link below and help to fund them.
This is the best money you will ever spend in terms of an insurance policy for our nation.
Daily Maverick: https://bit.ly/2N2fWPq
amaBhungane: https://bit.ly/2OFIJd4
Blog image courtesy of the Daily Meverick
by Justin Foxton | Jan 12, 2018 | Citizen Participation, Democracy, Leadership
“My sole aim was to ensure that my self-respect as a proud South African is restored, and that one way of restoring that was to ensure that the people responsible for large-scale thievery and exploitation are held to account.” Suzanne Daniels – Eskom whistle-blower.
Suzanne Daniels is one of the collective honored by the Daily Maverick in their 2017 Person(s) of the Year. The publication used her story and her face – along with Trillian whistle-blowers Bianca Goodson and Mosilo Mothepu – to honour the many brave South Africans who risked everything to expose corruption in 2017. Some of these whistle-blowers will likely never be known publicly – like the #Guptaleaks whistle-blowers. Many are still fighting their own battles legal, emotional and physical.
It is because of citizens like this – brave and passionate about what is right – that 2017 was without doubt the most important year in South Africa’s post-apartheid history. Without them we would be none-the-wiser about the breadth and depth of corruption in South Africa. The journalists and editors who exposed the stories must take major credit too, but the real risk will always be to the whistle-blowers.
This begs the question: Did 2017 and the torrent of putrid, rank evil that spewed forth over the course of the year, just happen, or had the right context been created for a year that would end somewhat poetically with Jacob Zuma’s demise as ANC President?
Sometime ago, I wrote an article in which I considered what I think is Jacob Zuma’s greatest legacy: for the first time since the early days of democracy, we unified in our disgust for what Jacob Zuma himself and those associated with him, were doing. We forgot our differences racial, political and economic and we took to the streets in our numbers, united against a man – and indeed a system – that we knew would wreck our country if we did not act together to stop it. We heeded the battle cry of people like Pravin Gordhan to do what we could to stop the rot.
Whistle-blowers spoke but also writers wrote, lawyers built cases, the public prayed, marched, phoned into radio stations, wrote letters to the papers and excreted all over social media. 2017 saw anger rise in unprecedented ways; we had had enough and mass social action was the result.
This was the context, created by none other than Zuma himself: He forced us out of our comfort-zones, off our backsides and into the arena; he caused us to reevaluate our psychological relationship with leadership; he made us participants in the building (saving?) of our democracy; he forced us to grow up beyond our 23 year oldness and accept that unless the citizens of a democracy work between elections – do more than just bitch and moan – then we cannot expect a different outcome to the one we have just got from him. Zuma caused us to come together and mobilise around a common goal, barriers that had previously existed between us were broken down: We were united against him. Hundreds of thousands, millions of us. I wonder if he knows the gift he gave us?
And now Cyril Ramaphosa. The clear risk we face is complacency; a return to our pre-2017 safe, happy, inactive selves who believe that the bad guy(s) is gone so we don’t have to act anymore. There are two facts here: at the time of writing this, the bad guy(s) were not gone. Secondly, when they are gone there will be more bad guys. That’s life. Ramaphosa cannot save or build South Africa. Only South African’s doing their bit however small, can do that. People love to outsource their citizenry to leaders in high office. But globally that game is up and the “small people” the whistle-blowers, marchers, bloggers, activists, #’ers, talkers etc. – these are the people who are changing the world.
We have about 18 months until the 2019 National elections. That election will be our rite of passage into democratic adulthood – if we make it so. We need to redouble our efforts as the citizen population during this time. We must put the screws on those who are destroying our nation in a way that makes 2017 pale. We must turn the volume up further on corruption and state capture. We must do this even if it is painful; even if our own friends, colleagues or loved ones are involved. We should hit the streets again and demand that Zuma be removed from office and tried for his crimes and we must do the same for everyone who has propped up the system of corruption that has brought our country into such disrepute. We must use this time to heap pressure on the ruling party so as to force a radical re-examination of itself – for the sake of the country and all who live in it and regardless of political affiliation.
We have a golden moment in time now given to us by virtue of us being between regimes and less than two years away from national elections. Let’s not waste it by taking our foot off the gas.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
by Justin Foxton | Nov 25, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Democracy, Leadership
A letter to my sister who is about to return to South Africa having lived in Britain for the past 4 years:
Dear M,
I hope you are well and surviving that UK weather. I wish you could send some rain to the Western Cape. The drought down there is horrific.
What do you make of what’s happening in Zim? If you had told me last week that in a matter of days Mugabe would still be alive but out of power, I would have laughed at you. It gives me such hope for South Africa, though we must do it peacefully and democratically (and preferably in less than 37 years!)
Your decision to come home is such a great one – not that I am biased! It’s a very exciting time to be in South Africa, though it’s not for the faint-hearted. So, as you make plans to come back home for good, I wanted to give you my thoughts on the “state of our nation”.
From all you will have heard and read, things will appear significantly worse in South Africa. To some extent they are. But you should know that the most important difference between where we are now and where we were say last month or even last year, is that the rot is pouring out into the open in a way that it has never done before. This is thanks to people like Jacques Pauw who wrote The President’s Keepers, NGO amaBhungane and The Daily Maverick who exposed #GuptaLeaks, Adriaan Basson and Pieter Du Toit who wrote Enemy of The People. The list of people bravely exposing Zuma, the Guptas and the stench of corruption and state capture is long and growing.
New revelations emerge daily and whilst this is extremely angering and even frightening for many of us, it is good. The exposure of the sheer magnitude of criminality within government, our state-owned enterprises and institutions like the State Security Agency is the necessary bursting of a boil that has been festering under the surface of this nation for too long. We naively believed that Nkandlagate and revelations of the looting of State Owned Enterprises represented giddying high points in corruption and the capturing of the presidency and the state. But we now know that they are individual cases of a plague that has swept our country. We now know that abuse of power and sheer greed run right into the heart of the democratic apparatus of our state.
So, I’m not saying things are good. They aren’t. They are appalling. But ironically, the fact that we know they are so appalling should give us a sense of hope; a sense that we are better off now than we were yesterday. For without knowledge of the enemy we are fighting, how can we possibly win? And every day we learn more and this must inform our fight.
Which brings me to my second point. Time and again history has shown us that it only takes a handful of good men and women to turn the tide on evil and we have more than a handful. There are so many people in this country (and indeed outside the country) who are risking everything to expose corruption and lead in ways that honour the legacy of our democracy’s founders. I mentioned Jacques Pauw et al but there are dozens of people who are speaking out daily. This extends from our often-fearless press, to individuals like Pravin Gordhan, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, Zwelenzima Vavi, Makhosi Khoza, David Lewis and his team at Corruption Watch, Sipho Pityana, Vytjie Mentor, Lord Peter Hain to opposition parties, civil society groups and NGO’s to the man and woman on the street. I think of the many police I have interacted with who will not solicit a bride. I think of the many friends and family members we have who will not pay a bribe or a kick-back.
History has always proved the adage that “good will ultimately triumph over evil” and South Africa will be no exception. This is simply because the good men and women of our time are taking a stand big or small. They are resisting the temptation to join the feeding frenzy and exposing lies and deception whenever they can, and hope remains.
My honest belief is that you are coming back at a very good and very necessary time. There is no doubt that it is a time of hope, rebuilding and restoring; it is time for a new struggle that involves all of us. As the good book puts it: “I (God) will restore the years that the locusts have eaten.” The image of locusts is spot on. If I was a cartoonist I would draw Zuma, the Guptas and all the rest of them as locusts destroying everything in their path. But ultimately – like every other plague in history – the locusts will not prevail.
I began this letter by saying that South Africa is not for the faint-hearted. But South Africa also isn’t for the complacent, the lazy or the negative right now either. If you aren’t willing to actively participate in a better future, then you will probably be over-whelmed by the scale of the rot and want to jump ship. It is only when people make the decision to remain hopeful and seriously invest in a nation – time, energy and money – and stand up for their ethics and values, that they become a positive and active contributor to the solution.
I hope this gives you some perspective. We can’t wait to have you home.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
