South Africa is well rid of former police national commissioner Jackie Selebi, sentenced to 15 years for corruption. Corruption is indeed, in the words of Judge Meyer Joffe, “sabotage of the country’s prosperity and … democracy”, but Selebi’s malfeasance is actually only a symptom of a bigger problem.
Selebi has been neutralised for now — depending on a possible appeal or even a pardon after what the African National Congress feels is a decent interval — but the cancer he epitomises started in the highest echelons of government. In that respect nothing is likely to change, for what matters most to the ANC is not how corrupt a comrade is but whether he or she is loyal.
The Selebi strain of the disease tracks back to former president Thabo Mbeki. He had ample warning of Selebi’s corruption but did everything possible to protect his close ally.
It was Mbeki who implored a delegation of religious leaders to “trust me” when they wanted a judicial inquiry into Selebi’s criminal connections. It was Mbeki who fired the prosecutions head Vusi Pikoli for daring to arrest Selebi.
Another part of the problem was the inability of police top brass to separate self-interest and their loyalty to Selebi from their law enforcement duties. Instead some connived to stymie the Scorpion investigation into Selebi and vied in issuing simpering endorsements of their boss.
Then there was Interpol, which when Selebi’s mobster connections became public currency should have insisted quietly that he stand down as president of the international police agency until the matter was resolved. Instead they sycophantically defended him as “a man of the highest professionalism and integrity”, an “honourable and dedicated public servant” who provided “honest, upright, and strong leadership”.
This of a man who brazenly defended his friendship with known international drug smuggler, Glenn Agliotti. A man who was also leaking British police intelligence on Agliotti’s drug smuggling to his criminal pal.
Interpol did not even mind that Selebi was a cheat, pocketing close on a quarter of a million rand from both Interpol and the SA Police Service for the same expenses. Interpol’s chief financial officer testified in Selebi’s defence that the agency didn’t have a problem with such “double-dipping”.
Given that Selebi was cocooned in layers of influential support, it is remarkable that he was brought to justice. It was the determination of unjustly axed airports’ chief Paul O’Sullivan, whose drip-feed of details regarding Selebi’s criminal activity eventually became impossible to ignore.
O’Sullivan was the driver but it was the media that was the vehicle. Without corroborating evidence dug up by reporters and a steady flow of new revelations, especially by the Mail & Guardian‘s investigative team, O’Sullivan’s claims would have petered out, especially in a country where there is a new corruption scandal every week.
It’s also worth noting that should the ANC’s new raft of planned media laws have been in operation four years ago, there are at least a dozen journalists who now would be sitting in jail, no doubt much to minister Blade Nzimande’s pleasure.
Selebi himself would have been sitting pretty and the web of mobster subversion of the SAPS spreading insidiously. How helpful, too, it would have been for the international drug cartels to have their own man in the Interpol top job.
Selebi may, for all we know, be just a sideshow. No one knows how deep and far the corruption in SAPS’s top hierarchy extends.
The judicial inquiry that SA’s religious leaders wanted might help us find out but can you really see the ANC going that route? So, as usual, it’s up to the journos, at least until the ANC muzzles them.
A fantastic appreciation of the situation. in particular one needs to note “…or even a pardon after what the African National Congress feels is a decent interval.”
More comment particularly relevant made are “for what matters most to the ANC is not how corrupt a comrade is but whether he or she is loyal.”,
“It was Mbeki who implored a delegation of religious leaders to “trust me”,
“Interpol……sycophantically defended him as “a man of the highest professionalism and integrity”, an “honourable and dedicated public servant” who provided “honest, upright, and strong leadership”.
“This of a man who brazenly defended his friendship with known international drug smuggler….”,
“…..claims would have petered out, especially in a country where there is a new corruption scandal every week.”
Accepting that these comments are a fair presentation the question now comes to the fore ie 1. If we are requested by the President of this country to trust him on such an untrustworthy issue where does it leave the other lesser politicians that want the public to believe them.
2. How long, if ever, will Selebi to be kept in jail, before he develops a “terminal sickness” and is illegally pardoned out of jail.
3. If loyalty to the party is more important than loyalty to the country this country will go to the dogs in double quick time.
A point well made. Having ‘their own man’ at the highest levels needs all the investigative journalism there is available to expose.
Maybe Interpol is not what it used to be. This does bring to light a serious flaw within Interpol. Who can say with all honesty that the majority of members are not involved in International crime if they do not take unbridge to Selebi and his actions.
The move against the press is from the Nationalist factions of the ANC. Nzimande who you, in error, cite as being supportive of the move on the media is in fact going to need the press when Julius Malema and Fikile Mbulala take more power in the party and start to hunt the “commies” as Malema is want to call Nzimande . Watch their lietenants create a climate on the very fragile university campuses that eventually reflects on Nzimande and his delivery contract with Zuma. The bolstering of this faction and their reach into governance is tipping towards midnight. After a certain point there is no return. Where are the voices in the party now quiet like they were over HIV ambivalent like they were then and there will be trouble ahead. Moves to protect the constitutional rights of the press must happen very quickly with applications before the court in the next few weeks. Before the courts are packed. Will this be a 1956 moment in South Africa for the court? Is the Mugabe supporting Malema and his nationalist supporters going to get a Zimbabwe press control going. Will populism fill the gap of economic difficulties and scapegoats like Nzimande be the the sacrificial lambs in a Nationalist Kraal? Nationalism once again haunts South Africa in a totally new but potentially equally debilitating form. People of left wing persuasion have been brought into a party that will liquidate them unless they stand up for a constitution which can potentially protect them.
Interesting, but scary thought.
Cast your mind beyonds the borders of South Africa and ask yourself……
…is there any group of people anywhere in the world that you, as an individual, hold in high esteem. Religious leaders, political leaders, business leaders?
…if you were to counsel your children, is there any group that you would cast as role models?
… who are the “good guys” in todays world?
…does the ordinary citizen have any hope at all of prevailing against religious, political and corporate interests?
@anton klenschmidt: exactly my feelings.
No good answer other than retire into your own quiet and familiar circle and trust only those who you can trust.
All the others are a gamble. As the saying goes: “be trusted and trsut nobody”.
Cynical but a necessary survival tactic.
What did Selebe do to earn his keep?? We all know that Selebi was in the pocket of Agliotti, but what we don’t know and what we need to know is what Selebi did to earn his ‘bribes’? Did he warn of impending police action against the drug king? Did he keep the cops at bay whilst drugs were coming into the country? Did he assist in getting confiscated drugs stolen and placed back into the drug trade – for Agliotti, of course? Did he assist in getting the cases against drug traffickers removed and forgotten.
Yes Selibi has been found guilty of corruption but this applied to the bribes that he received but, as I have said above what did he get paid for doing? Agliotti is not Santa Clause and you can be assured that his ‘gifts’ were not given just because he was friends with Selebi.
I wonder why Agliotti bought shoes and goodness knows else for Mbeki?
Excellent article – many thanks!
Selebi is seen as an ‘Mbeki man’ and as such is outside the patronage of the present regime. I seriously wonder whether his case would ever have made it to court – efforts of prosecutors and the Press notwithstanding – had he been under the protection of the Zuma (or should we say Mantashe?) faction of the ANC.
Anton,
Funnily enough there are plenty. Go into nearby Africa; to the more desolate spots. Kaokoland, the Lesotho Highlands, devastated Zimbabwe and central Mozambique. There you will find solid citizens, honest and hardworking, many quite well educated. Invariably poor but incredibly, happy, friendly and hospitable. Universally robbed by their governments but I have no hesitation in putting these people forward as examples to my children. I have.
Thumbs up!
Every one of us needs to speak out against a government that is saying “Up the Media’ in order to shut down the reporting of its interminable corruption.
As the public, it is our right to know what ANC leaders are up to and trying to get away with.
We are made aware of some new corruption scandal virtually every week (even though, if ever brought to book, punishment is ludicrously ignored, glossed over or sidled out of.)
Silencing the media gives the government even further licence to lie, cheat, steal and intimidate as they want and wherever they can.
(Has anyone given thought to the silenced all-but-forgotten Arms deal?)
The ANC continues to ravage the constitution of this country. We cannot afford to be complaisant or by our silence, complicit. There is too much at stake.
I am a vehement opponent of the proposed media tribunal and protection of information bill but Saunderson-Meyer’s is sufficient justification for those who support these legislation based purely on his disrespect for truth.
For example William alleges that Mbeki had “ample warning of Selebi’s corruption” and that he did “everything possible to protect his close ally”. It is my recollection that Pikoli stated in evidence that Mbeki helped them with investigation whenever the SAPS blocked the NPA’s efforts. Pikoli alleges that he was suspended because he wanted to arrest Selebi (despite the fact that Mbeki merely asked for an additional week) and the Ginwala commission found that he was unreasonable for not granting that additional week. Why is this not mentioned by Bill? Why does Bill suggest that Mbeki was given ample warning when, by Pikoli’s own version, he was only able to have sufficient evidence to prosecute Selebi only 10 months after first informing Mbeki (bearing in mind that Barry Gilder had already informed Mbeki, as coordinator of national intelligence, that the accusations against Selebi were a rumour). Based on this, Bill’s statement can’t be supported by the facts. Interestingly Bill does not mention on which basis in law Mbeki would have suspended or fired Selebi (based only on an investigation) nor does he justify why Mbeki should have instituted a judicial enquiry when the Scorpions were themselves investigating the case Bill!
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(Cont from above)
Bill is so dishonest he cannot give praise where it’s due, in this regard, to praise Mbeki’s administration (as he must) for having created the Scorpions and for having granted them sufficient institutional independence to enable them to investigate and eventually prosecute Selebi. So he invents history by attributing Selebi’s successful prosecution only on O’Sullivan and the media when in reality O’Sullivan’s evidence had no bearing to Selebi’s prosecution (in fact if Bill had bothered to read the judgment he would have noted that Pikoli testified that he had not seen O’Sullivan’s so-called dossier nor did he want the investigation tainted by O’Sullivan!).
Bill Saunderson-Meyer, your article is so riddled with inaccuracies that it is possibly defamatory. The effort of suing you in pursuance of your account for these malicious lies would be so expensive and time consuming that one is inclined to conclude that the ANC may have a point about media tribunals. They will force columnists and journos like you to at least think before putting pen to paper.
Spot on David Brown. The lefties in the ruling party had better stand up and be counted and soon. Problem is that so many of them are too busy feeding from the trough to notice the knives being sharpened for their slaughter.
@ Horace…..our context is slightly different. I am referring to religion, politics and big business in the broad global sense.
I would agree that there are plenty of examples such as those raised by you but unfortunately they have minimal impact on the big picture. Therein lies the tragedy
Not clear what Mr. Moronana means with his numerous references to ‘Bill’ during his extensive diatribe.
Is it the Protection of Information Bill which has got his knackers into such a knot?
Or is he addressing William Saunderson-Meyer, who does not write under the first-name ‘Bill’?
If so, and if Mr. Moronana is attempting to be rude, he needn’t bother. In fact, no other feature in his verbose dissertation, besides his rudeness, comes across with any clarity.
Clear Cut, you clearly cannot handle the truth.
@ Mr. Moroana.
Does ‘truth’ refer to your one-sided, long-winded, muddled-up, so-called viewpoint?
(Mercifully, you only used one line this time.)