The rot started in the new SA when South Africans started attacking the institutions that were established to protect them and, as state capture spread, accountability vanished, says former national director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka.
Ngcuka, a former human rights lawyer, senior political activist and member of the ANC team that negotiated the historic political transition at Codesa, was speaking at the launch of his biography, The Sting in the Tale by Marion Sparg, at the NMU Business School on Friday night.
He was responding to a question from his fellow panellist at the event, NMU honorary professor, theologian and former SA Human Rights Commission chair Prof Barney Pityana, who pointed to the current fraught situation in SA.
“We are overwhelmed by lawlessness. Where did it go wrong?”
Ngcuka said he was given the task of establishing the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in the mid-1990s.
He had travelled overseas to get an understanding of how criminal prosecution systems worked in other countries.
“The authorities over there would say the problem is our institutions are very young, meanwhile, their parliament was built in the 12th century and their prosecuting bodies were 60 years old.
“We on the other hand were just beginning.”
He said the youthful frailty of institutions in post-democratic SA had quickly come under pressure.
“In parliament, for instance, political representatives did not want to debate and they trashed the institution they were elected to uphold.
“So that is where it went wrong.
“We started attacking the institutions that were established to protect us, that were meant to serve us when we were no longer in power.
“The first to go was the Scorpions, then the NPA was captured, then the police, then [the department of] Intelligence and then Sars [SA Revenue Service].
“When you have got those then you can do anything because there is no accountability.”
The launch was hosted by the NMU Centre for the Advancement of Nonracialism and Democracy and publisher Jonathan Ball, and the lecture hall where it was held was packed with students and older academics and stalwarts of the anti-apartheid struggle.
The event was a celebration of Eastern Cape heroes with Ngcuka born in Middledrift in the former Ciskei and Pityana in Kariega while the audience included heavyweight businessman and former member of the ANC national executive committee Saki Makozoma, who was born in Gqeberha.
Former black consciousness leader and now environmental activist Moki Cekisani was also there and received loud applause when he called for “a reorientation ... where South Africans will be judged not by their pigmentation but by their commitment to Africa”.
Pityana said the publication of the book could not have been better timed.
“South Africans are at sixes and sevens.
“Some are saying at least under apartheid we had jobs, food and houses.
“They are forgetting what apartheid was about because there is deep disappointment and a sense of failure.
“This book is a reminder that there are men and women among us of stature and courage and that whatever may happen we must never give up and say SA is a failure because if we do then we are saying you and I are failures too.
“Bulelani’s voice is the voice of hope.
“The coming of democracy in 1994 was not the end of the struggle.
“It was the beginning of the opportunity for us to struggle for something better.”
Ngcuka said it was his good friend Macozoma who had got him to start the National Prosecuting Authority in 1998.
“It was a huge challenge. But I thought that challenge would come from white people opposed to transformation.
“Never did it occur to me that my enemies would come from my own people.”
In 2003, Ngcuka sparked controversy when he told journalists though there was prima facie evidence of corruption against then deputy president Jacob Zuma, the case was not strong enough to go to court.
Zuma’s supporters claimed the comment was evidence of an attempt to smear his name to prevent him from becoming president.
Shortly afterward, allegations against Ngcuka, who at that stage was head of the Scorpions, a specialised unit of the NPA, surfaced in a national newspaper.
The allegation, that he was an apartheid spy, stemmed from an ostensible investigation by the ANC in 1989 led by then foreign ministry adviser Mo Shaik, brother of Schabir, a confidant of Zuma’s who was being probed by the Scorpions for allegedly soliciting a £42,000 (R814,000) bribe from a French company involved in a controversial arms deal.
In 2004, a judicial inquiry found no evidence Ngcuka was a spy — and turned the spotlight on his accusers.
Ngcuka said while the NPA had previously been captured it was now being well run under national director Shamila Batohi.
“They are making good strides.”
He said he was proud to be a black African but there was too much work to be done in SA for it to be held up by ideology.
“The problem is people being hired can’t do their jobs. Klaar [finish].
“Change that — and we will change the country.”
HeraldLIVE
Assault on key institutions start of SA’s decline, says Ngcuka
‘Setting ideology aside and hiring competent people key to turnaround’
Senior Reporter
Image: EUGENE COETZEE
The rot started in the new SA when South Africans started attacking the institutions that were established to protect them and, as state capture spread, accountability vanished, says former national director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka.
Ngcuka, a former human rights lawyer, senior political activist and member of the ANC team that negotiated the historic political transition at Codesa, was speaking at the launch of his biography, The Sting in the Tale by Marion Sparg, at the NMU Business School on Friday night.
He was responding to a question from his fellow panellist at the event, NMU honorary professor, theologian and former SA Human Rights Commission chair Prof Barney Pityana, who pointed to the current fraught situation in SA.
“We are overwhelmed by lawlessness. Where did it go wrong?”
Ngcuka said he was given the task of establishing the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in the mid-1990s.
He had travelled overseas to get an understanding of how criminal prosecution systems worked in other countries.
“The authorities over there would say the problem is our institutions are very young, meanwhile, their parliament was built in the 12th century and their prosecuting bodies were 60 years old.
“We on the other hand were just beginning.”
He said the youthful frailty of institutions in post-democratic SA had quickly come under pressure.
“In parliament, for instance, political representatives did not want to debate and they trashed the institution they were elected to uphold.
“So that is where it went wrong.
“We started attacking the institutions that were established to protect us, that were meant to serve us when we were no longer in power.
“The first to go was the Scorpions, then the NPA was captured, then the police, then [the department of] Intelligence and then Sars [SA Revenue Service].
“When you have got those then you can do anything because there is no accountability.”
The launch was hosted by the NMU Centre for the Advancement of Nonracialism and Democracy and publisher Jonathan Ball, and the lecture hall where it was held was packed with students and older academics and stalwarts of the anti-apartheid struggle.
The event was a celebration of Eastern Cape heroes with Ngcuka born in Middledrift in the former Ciskei and Pityana in Kariega while the audience included heavyweight businessman and former member of the ANC national executive committee Saki Makozoma, who was born in Gqeberha.
Former black consciousness leader and now environmental activist Moki Cekisani was also there and received loud applause when he called for “a reorientation ... where South Africans will be judged not by their pigmentation but by their commitment to Africa”.
Pityana said the publication of the book could not have been better timed.
“South Africans are at sixes and sevens.
“Some are saying at least under apartheid we had jobs, food and houses.
“They are forgetting what apartheid was about because there is deep disappointment and a sense of failure.
“This book is a reminder that there are men and women among us of stature and courage and that whatever may happen we must never give up and say SA is a failure because if we do then we are saying you and I are failures too.
“Bulelani’s voice is the voice of hope.
“The coming of democracy in 1994 was not the end of the struggle.
“It was the beginning of the opportunity for us to struggle for something better.”
Ngcuka said it was his good friend Macozoma who had got him to start the National Prosecuting Authority in 1998.
“It was a huge challenge. But I thought that challenge would come from white people opposed to transformation.
“Never did it occur to me that my enemies would come from my own people.”
In 2003, Ngcuka sparked controversy when he told journalists though there was prima facie evidence of corruption against then deputy president Jacob Zuma, the case was not strong enough to go to court.
Zuma’s supporters claimed the comment was evidence of an attempt to smear his name to prevent him from becoming president.
Shortly afterward, allegations against Ngcuka, who at that stage was head of the Scorpions, a specialised unit of the NPA, surfaced in a national newspaper.
The allegation, that he was an apartheid spy, stemmed from an ostensible investigation by the ANC in 1989 led by then foreign ministry adviser Mo Shaik, brother of Schabir, a confidant of Zuma’s who was being probed by the Scorpions for allegedly soliciting a £42,000 (R814,000) bribe from a French company involved in a controversial arms deal.
In 2004, a judicial inquiry found no evidence Ngcuka was a spy — and turned the spotlight on his accusers.
Ngcuka said while the NPA had previously been captured it was now being well run under national director Shamila Batohi.
“They are making good strides.”
He said he was proud to be a black African but there was too much work to be done in SA for it to be held up by ideology.
“The problem is people being hired can’t do their jobs. Klaar [finish].
“Change that — and we will change the country.”
HeraldLIVE
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