South Africa

MANDELA DAY

Be vigilant on private sector corruption, warns Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng

Be vigilant on private sector corruption, warns Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng
29 May 2019: Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng spoke to Sunday Times Political Reporter Qaanitah Hunter from this office at Constitution Hill. Picture: Sebabatso Mosamo/Sunday Times

Believing that corruption in South Africa was a ‘black thing’ that began and ended with the Gupta family was a fallacy, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told a Mandela Day gathering in Kempton Park on Wednesday 17 July.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng says that South Africa has not yet begun to grapple with the “magnitude of corruption” in the private sector and the effect this has had on State Capture.

Addressing a leadership meeting organised by the People Matter Foundation, a non-profit that provides care and support in times of distress due to disasters, he said, “Leadership is never really positional; it is functional leadership that matters. Be careful about those who are prepared to do everything outside of the book to ascend to a leadership position.”

His talk was given in the lead-up to Mandela Day on July 18, which celebrates the late icon’s life as a humanitarian and leader at large. Justice Mogoeng called on South Africans to reflect on Nelson Mandela’s legacy and ask themselves whether they are living up to it.

Since he [Mandela] had dedicated his life to a course, what is it that you have dedicated your life to?

Part of what we need to grapple with here is corruption. Part of what we have to grapple with in Africa and the rest of the world is corruption. But it looks like we have allowed ourselves to be channelled into believing that corruption can only be in the public sector,” Justice Mogoeng said.

He warned that corruption will never be uprooted if there is a perspective “that it’s a ‘black thing’. Every human being is capable of that.”

The country had not yet begun to grapple with “the magnitude of corruption that has obtained in the private sector”.

He said the media has a constitutional obligation to inform and not misinform people. He singled out an article he read from a South African Sunday newspaper that portrayed what he termed was “biased coverage”.

Sadly, some of the things that we read about other people, some of the things that some of our analysts would like to feed us are designed to project some in a negative light and others always in the positive. That is not how we build a nation.”

Mandela would have never survived if all South Africans “flowed with the negative tide that ran against the course that he was championing”.

Justice Mogoeng reiterated a call for the state to fund political parties that deserve to run for office during elections, saying, “Elections don’t come every month or every year, they come once in a while. Because we don’t want State Capture, we’ve got to budget whatever number of millions.”

If the private sector funds politicians, it breeds an environment that allows corruption to soar in the form of favours: “We need to really think deep about how capture happens. If they fund you to the point that you succeed and win and become government, are you not captured in advance?” he asked.

The chief justice warned that the perception that South Africa’s problems would disappear “once we have dealt with the Gupta situation” because then “we have dealt with corruption… will be a disservice to this nation, it is a fallacy.

When did our state-owned enterprises begin to lose state money? Who else is benefitting from the coal issue at Eskom? Have we ever bothered to find out how much other people are getting? Why are we not talking about these things? Mandela would want to know.”

He said, “No leader in the private sector, in the political system and the media ought to be allowed to target innocent people to make them look bad for flimsy reasons.”

Justice Mogoeng urged South Africans to be vocal about all forms of injustice without bias. DM

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