The "unmandated" diatribe against media freedom by Tito Mboweni, magnanimously carried by the Mail & Guardian ("M&G's blatant attempt to divide the ANC", April 5), is heartwarming for its voluble display of loyalty to the ANC. This, despite signs that demonstrating in foggy London in favour of freedom of expression in the 1980s has taken its toll on the critical faculties of this struggle veteran, former Cabinet minister and governor of the Reserve Bank, now a mere national executive committee member.
Mboweni needs to blast the fog away and take a hard look at the feral state into which his once noble movement has fallen. Certainly, there are good people in the ANC, but an alliance between ANC nationalists, the South African Communist Party and the unionists of Cosatu has always been an expensive ménage à trois. According to published figures, during the 1990s the ANC received donations to the tune of about R1-billion from despots of Saudi, Nigerian and Indonesian origin. Add to this the proceeds of the arms deals (in which the bribes totalled R2.1-billion) and the R5.8-billion dividend stream to the ANC through its involvement in the Hitachi Power Africa deal with Eskom, and one has a hugely compromised organisation. The low points of its foreign policy show how indebted the ANC is to its friends in low places.
Then Mboweni should consider the inexplicable decisions taken at Polokwane and Mangaung to put faith in the leadership of an individual who ought – if our most senior prosecutors are worthy of credence – to be facing 783 charges of corruption.
This same ANC that Mboweni so cherishes closed down the efficient Scorpions and replaced them with the ineffective Hawks. It repeatedly puts the wrong personnel in charge of the police.
The ANC persists with the illegal and unconstitutional practice of cadre deployment in the public service. It has presided over turning the most feared armed forces in Africa into a shambles. It admits that the police service is dysfunctional and that the education system is in crisis. The same goes for public healthcare. It ignores the findings of the court in the Institute for Democracy in Africa case for the need for regulation of political party funding, without which fair elections are rendered impossible. It conflates party and state, endangering the survival of the very constitutional democracy it brought into being.
No, Tito, it is not the function of the press to deal with corruption; it is the job of the government. The press can only report what is going on. Unless the good people in the ANC stand up to be counted, the national slide towards a failed state will continue. Shooting the messenger will not help. – Paul Hoffman, SC, director of the Institute for Accountability
Mboweni's piece begs for brief reflection on the media's habit of using so-called "faceless people" in their stories.
Critics of the practice feel that those peddling information to the media should have the courage to identify themselves. A reluctance to be identified looks like proof that the source's information is unreliable. Its advocates argue that an individual's decision to give information anonymously does not necessarily imply a sinister motive. The source could have requested that his or her name be withheld for a number of reasons, including fear of victimisation.
When assessing the usefulness of anonymous sources, the question should be about the usefulness of the information provided. Editors and journalists have a duty to crosscheck what anonymous sources tell them.
So, yes, the fact that one of the ANC's national executive committee members did not like it when the body resolved to disband the party's youth league leadership and thus complained about it to the media does not mean that what this individual told the media is a lie. – Clive Ndou, journalism tutor, Durban