Give Madlanga more rope
· Citizen
President Cyril Ramaphosa has agreed to extend the life of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry from the end of August to mid-November.
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This is not a gesture of cooperation, but rather an act of containment. Were the president as keen to expose state capture and institutionalised corruption as he so often claims, he would have extended the commission’s lifespan substantially, expanded its reach, and funded it more generously.
Madlanga is just getting started
The hearings are only now hitting paydirt. We should not forget that the commission was not born of an ANC zeal to cleanse the state.
It was forced upon the government by a mutinous police general who, frustrated by the disbandment of his task team into political assassinations, decided to bypass a compromised system and throw down the gauntlet in public.
Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s claims were explosive. Organised crime networks, protected by powerful political patrons, had penetrated the police, prosecuting authority and elements of the judiciary, and none of this, said the general, was news to the ANC-led government.
‘Ramaphosa had no option but to act’
For years, he had been blocked and stalled by the very factions he was trying to expose. But after his unauthorised press conference turned him overnight into a folk hero and made international headlines, Ramaphosa had no option but to act.
Or at least appear to act. The ANC could not openly sabotage the commission but it had learnt much from Zondo. The state capture commission had run for nearly four years, cost close to R1 billion and produced a 5 437-page, six-part report.
It laid bare a monstrous corruption machine: the Gupta cabal that engineered it, the ANC cadres who ran and shielded it and the politicians and officials who benefited.
Results are showing
Despite Ramaphosa managing largely to bury the report as a law-enforcement threat, the political damage to the ANC was enormous. The ANC could not afford Madlanga to become Zondo II. Ramaphosa was especially vulnerable.
Madlanga threatened to show that he had instead presided over State Capture II. The key, the president knew, was to keep the brief tight, the timeline short and the money limited.
It is understandable that Ramaphosa would want the Madlanga commission to wither on the vine.
Arrests have been made. Charges have been laid. Plea deals are being negotiated, agreed upon and then, curiously, collapsing.
Mchunu’s special leave
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, on “special leave” for the past year, appeared briefly before Madlanga but was never properly interrogated.
The same is true of his predecessor, Bheki Cele. Last week, for the first time, the spotlight swung directly onto the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and its supposedly elite anti-graft arm, the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac).
Retired Hawks Colonel Kobus Roelofse damningly claimed that advocate Andrea Johnson, the head of Idac, actively interfered in an assault and intimidation investigation involving Major-General Feroz Khan, suspended deputy crime intelligence head in the South African Police Service.
‘Useless medical certificate’
According to Roelofse, Johnson improperly obtained confidential docket information and leaked it to Khan. Rather than facing a harrowing cross-examination on this, Johnson made a temporary escape using that tried and trusted ANC standby, the “sick note”.
Her legal team produced what Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga blasted as a “useless” medical certificate.
But there is plenty of life left in Madlanga. Through the commission’s process of claim, rebuttal and cross-examination, South Africans are getting the clearest view yet of how deeply compromised parts of the justice system is. Give Madlanga more rope. Let’s see who he snares next.