Barney Mthombothi pointed out on Sunday that Dame Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, one of the most visible and certainly the most important police position in the United Kingdom, announced her resignation. She stated that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, “No longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue.” This even though it is not the mayor who appoints the commissioner; the British Home Secretary does so.
This is how personal responsibility is taken in successful democracies. Dame Cressida, despite her many successes in the role, had failed to change the culture of misogyny, racism, homophobia and bullying that was alleged to be part of the culture of the Metropolitan police. Instead of brazening it out and either remaining silent, or pointing fingers at others, she resigned.
Why is this almost unheard of in South Africa? Ministers cling for dear life to office, refusing to go unless fired. In doing so, they make life difficult for the president. His prerogative is to hire or fire ministers but because we have a rather weak incumbent, he generally does not have the courage to rid his cabinet of non-performers, the clearly corrupt or those not up to the job.
The same goes for officials. We have an unfortunate system of five-year contracts for senior officials, instead of a proper professional civil service. Officials who are no good are suspended on full pay and months or sometimes even years of disciplinary hearings follow before they are disposed of, often receiving pay-outs in the millions of Rands.
Most South Africans know there is something seriously wrong with our crime-fighting abilities. Our security services, including the SAPS, State Security, the SANDF and the National Prosecution Authority, all have glaring weaknesses. After receiving the extremely embarrassing report on last July’s looting and rioting, plus the huge damage to our economy on top of 350 or more people killed and many more who lost livelihoods, the president announced in the State of the Nation Address (SONA) that there would be some changes in the security services. Hooray.
Why has not even one of the ministers involved, or the deputy ministers, or the senior officials, stepped up to accept the damning conclusions of the report? Why was it necessary to wait 6 months after the violence that rocked our country, when the deficiencies of the ministers and the SAPS and the State Security Agency were obvious to the whole country at the time, and still none of them had the courage or the integrity to offer their resignation then or now?
Why is Minister Cele, that incompetent police minister, still in office? Why is the minister of State Security still there? Why is National Police Commissioner Sithole in office? At least the minister of Defence was moved (to the more senior position of speaker of the National Assembly after she, quite correctly, repudiated the president’s statement that the looting was instigated by a treasonous cabal).
The report on the looting highlighted factionalism in the ANC as one of the causes of the lamentable failure of our security services to bring the violence under control. Is it not time for senior and junior figures in that political party (referred to by some of its adoring followers as the “Glorious Movement”) to realise that factionalism will destroy their party? When they lose power in 2024, there will be many who rue their party-wrecking activities.
Douglas Gibson is a former opposition chief whip and a former ambassador to Thailand. His website is douglasgibsonsouthafrica.com
This article first appeared in The Star newspaper.
