South Africa has all the trappings for clean, graft-free government. There is a public protector, a forthcoming anti-corruption law, and a Register of Members’ Interests in which all MPs are supposed to disclose their assets.
All of these institutions helped propel South Africa to a top position among the cleanest states in a recent global assessment of corruption and transparency.
But for a confidential section, the register is a public document and the latest edition was opened up for public scrutiny last week. The purpose of the register is to keep the body politic clean and free from the influence-peddling, lobbying and other corrupting practices that have eroded democracies like the United States, France and Kenya.
The Mail & Guardian reports this week that many MPs are being less than frank in their declarations, often “forgetting” to declare interests in businesses. It is not meant to be a pro forma and hurried declaration done as part of a “To Do” list by new incumbents.
Instead, it should be a considered declaration done in conjunction with trained officials who know what to ask MPs.
The register ensures that the links between business and politics do not become corrosive as politicians can easily forget which master they serve — the public that elected them or the company that holds the purse strings.
It is now clear that the register needs urgent revision to improve its efficacy. For one, it needs a bigger and more experienced secretariat to check disclosures and make the document one that errant or absent-minded MPs cannot forget.
Disclosures need to be audited so the document is one that is credible and effective. At the moment, it is run by one woman and her fax machine.
It is worth noting that most MPs are disclosing in a detailed and considered way (Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu, for example, even declared mozzie spray) — and that is a good thing.
But with a greater and greater number of politicians boosting their earnings by acting as consultants or directors (several have started their own businesses), the task of making the register work better is an urgent one. MP Kader Asmal recently also said that the penalties for non-disclosure should include the sanction of dismissal from Parliament. At the moment, all the ethics committee can impose is a slap on the wrist.
Serious attention should be given to Asmal’s suggestion — and serious work should go into making the register a living document.
Police need riot control training
This week’s upheavals in the Free State township of Ntabazwe suggest that the South African police services have not learned a whole lot new about riot control since the era of “quirts”, “tearsmoke” and “sharp ammunition” in the late 1980s.
In protest against the perceived slow pace of development in the township and alleged preference given to nearby QwaQwa, youngsters tried to block the N3 highway and stoned passing traffic. Police retaliated by opening fire with pellets and rubber bullets, killing 17-year-old Teboho Mkhonza, and arrested 75 youths, all of whom were charged with public violence and released on R100 bail or into the custody of their parents.
On the face of it, this seems a gross over-reaction. How could live ammunition be fired at youths whose transgressions were so trivial that they could be released on such piffling bail? No police injuries were reported — where was the threat to life and limb to warrant lethal force?
What is particularly worrying is that there appears to be a growing a pattern of police over-reaction to popular protest. In June a council security company shot and killed a resident of Phoenix, near Durban, who was allegedly reconnecting his disconnected power supply. In July police fired rubber bullets at unruly demonstrators in Diepsloot, outside Johannesburg, and temporarily banned the media from the township.
Obviously, the Mail & Guardian does not support violence of any kind as a means of protest. But, in our constitutional democracy, the right to life and bodily integrity are supremely important. It is for this reason that Parliament amended the Criminal Procedure Act to regulate the use of deadly force in the enforcement of laws.
The implication is that security force action must be proportional to the threat posed by violence; that the police must view injury as an occupational hazard of riot control, not grounds for brutal retaliation; and that lethal force — including rubber bullets, which are thought to have killed Mkhonza — should be used only in extreme cases or circumstances. It also means that the media must be allowed into troubled areas to monitor the actions of law-enforcers.
This week’s episode suggests our police need training in the riot control methods suited to a modern democracy. The aim should be to contain and defuse popular anger, avoiding loss of life by all means.