SA owes a debt of gratitude to the judiciary, business and civil society

After nearly a decade of systematic and institutionalised corruption under the administration of Jacob Zuma, South Africa is finally seeing the results of deliberate and decisive action to root out the rot.  Nowhere is this truer than in the open and transparent work of the four commissions of inquiry, set up by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe criminal wrongdoing by senior politicians, public officials and business people during the Zuma government.

These include:

• The Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, headed by Deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, which continues to expose the rot.
• The Nuget Commission of Inquiry into the SA Revenue Service (SARS), which has ensured the removal of Tom Moyane and the appointment of a new Commissioner, Edward Kieswetter to rebuild this essential institution.
• The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) Commission, which continues to expose in remarkable detail how politically connected senior officials benefited from the largest asset manager in the continent. The PIC is responsible for managing over R2trn of public servants’ money.
• The Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, which has exposed the criminal conduct of Nomgcobo Jiya and Lawrence Mwerbi in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The appointment of Advocate Shamila Batohi as the new National Director of Public Prosecutions to lead the revival of the NPA and moves towards establishing an investigating directorate dealing with serious corruption and associated offences in the office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) will no doubt prove decisive in ongoing efforts to strengthen the fight against crime and corruption.

Just how far the cancerous rot has spread, robbing the people of South Africa of billions of rands and undermining the very foundation of our democratic state, has been on full display in startling evidence produced by the various commissions.  The "denuding" of the state and consequent loss of key people in government and the shameless looting of public resources through the systematic re-purposing of state-owned enterprises (SOES) by public officials to serve narrow interests has been the obnoxious face of corruption. The collateral socioeconomic consequences have been declining confidence in government and the erosion of trust, rising policy and institutional uncertainty, sharply declining business confidence, declining investment levels, and rising poverty and inequality. Corruption has not only resulted in the loss of state revenue for economic and social development and service delivery, but also eroded the capacity and legitimacy of the State.

We therefore applaud the volume and frequency of evidence and bold remedial measures produced by the various commissions as decisive steps in re-establishing the rule of law, rebuilding citizen and investor confidence in our public institutions, and setting South Africa back on a path of institutional and economic renewal towards growth and prosperity for all.

They reaffirm our conviction in the sanctity of the Constitution and the exclusive judicial powers conferred on the courts, which, in a series of judgments, have continued in the important task of reaffirming the integrity of the institutional and legal framework.

Indeed, it is the rigorous system of checks and balances embedded in the Constitution, in the face of pervasive state capture, that has been a key element of our democracy.

As always, the danger is that the public becomes inured to the volume and frequency of exposés, and simply switches off. However, thanks to the resilience of the legal framework and the spirit of active citizenry that this democracy is built on, many South Africans civil society organisations, particularly Freedom Under Law (FUL), Corruption Watch and organised business under Business Leadership SA (BLSA), have been instrumental in enabling the significant progress in restoring the integrity and capacity of strategic public institutions.

In particular, we commend the interventions of private sector organisations such as Webber Wentzel who acted pro bono for FUL for four years in the Jiba and Mrwebi matter. We owe a huge debt of gratitude as BLSA and as a country for the incredible support they have provided to FUL and other civil society organisations.

A cardinal lesson (and positive harbinger of the future) is a simple proposition: A strong, legally independent judiciary and active citizenry are a powerful bulwark against the worst excesses of individuals who presume to be more powerful than institutions.

We look forward to the next phase of the process in which the capacity of the justice system to bring those responsible for theft to book will no doubt be tested. To paraphrase the president in his State Of the Nation Address (SONA) earlier this year, the action we take now to end corruption and hold those responsible to account will determine the pace and trajectory of change we seek.

Bonang Mohale is the CEO of BLSA