PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY LESSONS FOR MZANSI FROM FRANCE
- MAR
- Apr 3
- 3 min read
Today Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader of the National Rally Party, was banned from holding public office for 5 years! She was found guilty of embezzlement of €4m of EU funds.
This is what public accountability looks like. You are found guilty of embezzlement of public funds you are deemed ineligible to hold public office. You have broken the trust the public placed on you to promote the common good. Not in Mzansi. In 2022 President Ramaphosa was reported by a judicial investigation chaired by Judge Sandile Ngcobo to have a case to answer for being found to have hidden foreign currency of no less than US$4million at his Phalaphala Farm, yet he is still holding the highest office in the land!
As if that is not enough, but perhaps not surprisingly, Ramaphosa appointed Thembi Simelane Minister of Justice in June 2024, despite her having been fingered for participating in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal that robbed old age pensioners of their hard won savings. She helped herself to R575 600 confirmed in the Zondo Commission Report. This week Simelane is reported to have also helped herself to R700 000 from Eskom in yet another shady deal some years ago.
The President under public pressure end 2024 moved Simelane to Human Settlements. This move tells you a lot about the value this government attaches to effective and efficient provision of adequate dignified human settlements for citizens, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. It also demonstrates that accountability is not in the ANC government’s DNA.
The Le Pen case should serve to galvanise South Africans to wake up to their responsibilities to hold public officials accountable. Our State Owned Enterprises are in shambles because they have been stolen dry as detailed in the Zondo Commission Report. The close to R1bn spent on this state Capture Report has yet to elicit vigorous follow through as promised by President Ramaphosa. Another act of lack of accountability.
It is also not an accident that our educational system is as poor as it is. Post-1994 ANC governments have shown little interest in transforming the colonial apartheid education based on post-Industrial Revolution materialist extractive socio-economic paradigm and values. Our education continues to reflect the inequities of the past. The proportion of white students in the overall population of children who attended school in 2021 was 3,8%, and they occupied 62% of the spaces in elite public schools and 55% of spaces in elite private schools.
Dilapidated educational facilities and infrastructure, as well as poorly qualified and largely unmotivated teachers, are very common in areas serving the majority black poor communities. Public funds allocated to enhancing public schools across the country especially in rural areas since 1996 have largely been embezzled. Children dying by drowning in public toilets are one of the ugly faces of an unaccountable public service. There is no consequence management from the highest office in the land to the lowest.
Our education system is designed to graduate people who are not self-confident well informed independent thinkers. Most citizens to date are not knowledgeable about their rights and responsibilities in a Constitutional democracy. The dismissal by President Thabo Mbeki of the 2000 Report of the Working Group on Values in Education established Chaired by then UCT Prof Wilmot James, by then Minister, Prof Kader Asmal, was a tragedy. The Report recommended embedding civic education in Life Orientation, was a huge missed opportunity for the country.
The recommendations would have enabled every high school graduate to understand how our Constitutional democracy works, and to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens. One can only surmise that such graduates would have been inconvenient for those who preferred to keep citizens in the dark and dependent on government handouts.
It is never too late to change cause. The millions of young unemployed graduates and school dropouts can still be enabled through civic education embedded in personal development programs to prepare them for work. The values of Ubuntu embraced by our Constitution need to be re-embedded in our personal, professional, and political lives. Active citizens imbued with Ubuntu would also enhance the quality of interpersonal and social relationships reducing crime, corruption, and insecurity.
The coming local authorities elections are an opportunity to end the preponderance of dysfunctional municipalities across our society. Citizens should only elect to public office those people living in each ward who demonstrate their commitment to the values of Ubuntu. In addition, candidates must be assisted to learn about the workings of local, provincial, and national governance to ensure that they would be able to serve those who elected them to office, and the larger society.
We owe it to posterity to correct this fault line in our governance system, and to promote accountability in public service. Accountability is the only guarantee of sustainability of our democracy.
Mamphela Ramphele
Chair of Archbishop Tutu IPTRUST
31/3/2025