POLITICS - ANC stalwart and former party treasurer-general Mathews Phosa is challenging President Cyril Ramaphosa to come clean and reveal where he was looking when his ally and then minister of police, Senzo Mchunu, halted the investigations by the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) and dissolved the team.
He said that while he would like to avoid pre-empting the outcome of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, it was clear that senior politicians collaborate with criminals, and it continues unchecked while the president is quiet about it.
Yet, as the president, he should know, because the buck stops with him.
“Where was the president looking when this happened? The buck stops with him,” Phosa said, in an interview with The Citizen, days after he published his biography titled Witness To Power: A Political Memoir.
Phosa, who claimed there is collusion between top politicians and thugs, including killers and thieves who loot state resources, said Ramaphosa, as president, must account for what his minister did.
Corruption
The PKTT case might be the tip of the iceberg, as there was a widespread corrupt relationship between politicians and thugs, as shown by Mchunu’s actions.
He said what emerged from the Madlanga commission about Mchunu, who stopped an investigation into political killings in KwaZulu-Natal, is a typical example of how politicians collude with thugs to commit crime or stop the prosecution of the thugs.
He said the minister was protecting the murderers behind these killings, which is collusion with criminals.
“But where was the president looking when this happened? The buck stops with him. He can’t say I didn’t know, where was he looking, he should know? South Africa is avoiding that question – where was the president looking?
“The buck stops with the president, not with his minions. We must hold the government properly accountable,” Phosa said.
‘Comrades collaborating with thugs’
In his testimony following the revelations made by KwaZulu-Natal police provincial commission Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that the minister instructed the disbandment of the PKTT, Mchunu confirmed he had ordered the dissolution of the team and stopped the probe into political killings in the province.
“Comrades are collaborating with thieves and thugs. Politicians cannot make common cause with thieves and thugs.
“We must object when they do that because they are stealing from the people. Thieves are putting money in the pockets of politicians,” Phosa said.
The capture of the state by the Gupta brothers was a dramatic expression of corruption, with daylight looting of state resources, with millions leaving the country.
“The smell of corruption is the same – whether in one case money in billions leaves the country or in another case Tembisa Hospital is looted while corpses of innocent people, the whistle-blowers, who stood for what is right, pile up.
“The price they pay is death, that’s why I say you will only silence me with the last bullet – death. Silence in the face of evil is collusion with evil; we learnt that very early in our political lives.
“The state is conniving with thieves by not prosecuting them,” Phosa said.
What power did to the ANC
Power and money have corrupted and corroded the soul of the ANC, which has corrupted the entire society.
“That’s what power did to the ANC. However, there are those of us who have run the government – I led Mpumalanga province (as premier) – and I don’t remember stealing one cent.
“I did not care to know the agenda of the tender board. Why do you have to know what is on the agenda of the tender board as a leader?” he said.
As premier, he appointed an incorruptible and ethical man, Lot Ndlovu, the first Black Management Forum president, as chair of the provincial tender board and he trusted him.
However, today it is different. The tender boards or state supply chain management committees have become a haven for thieves within the government.
“They steal from there. They would know what is coming up for tenders and then pick it up for themselves, their relatives and friends. That’s where the rot begins,” the stalwart said.
The task of politicians, including ministers and mayors, is to deliver services to the people, not to issue tenders, he said.
“We must insist that politicians and councillors behave themselves and let administrators do what they do.
“They don’t only corrupt themselves as politicians, they corrupt society; they lose the ethics of good governance,” Phosa said.
Conscience of the ANC
Responding as to whether he regards himself as the conscience of the ANC, he said: “I am not the conscience of the ANC, but I am one of those people in the ANC who reject these things.”
“I reject them in words, I reject them in action. I speak out against them, I speak loudly against them, and I will continue.
“The only thing that will stop me from telling the truth and speaking against what is wrong is death.”
He is not alone; he has fellow comrades like Mavuso Msimang and even Thabo Mbeki in speaking out against the wrongs in the ANC.
The stalwarts, despite criticism from some ANC top brass, have consistently opposed indiscipline and corruption of party members.
Article: Caxton publication, The Citizen
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