The presidential action by Cyril Ramaphosa to establish a special investigative task team to investigate some of the revelations and recommendations from the Madlanga commission has been widely praised.
It represents a rare moment, particularly in the context of Ramaphosa’s slow-paced leadership style.
After the disastrous evidence of KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona, Ramaphosa’s action was right on time.
Senona’s evidence was an abrasive experience for the nation, and it needed some sort of soothing ointment.
Whether it was the reading of public sentiment or a step in the process of the Madlanga commission that moved Ramaphosa to act is of less importance than the action itself.
Swift action is the only way to deal with people like Senona.
Senona’s testimony left the bulk of South Africans wondering how such a man could become the provincial head of the Hawks, a specialised police unit.
The Hawks were set up to tackle serious high-profile crimes which threaten state security and the economy of the country.
Organised crime, corruption and related activities are areas of focus for the Hawks.
That a provincial head of this unit frequently fraternises with known criminals, gangsters and cartel bosses, calling them brothers, is appalling.
We must ask where the national head of the Hawks was, because one of his provincial heads is deeply implicated in large-scale organised crime.
In fact, former Hawks head Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya has been implicated in cartel activities by several witnesses.
Senona presided over the theft of a big cocaine heist from police custody in KwaZulu-Natal to the tune of R200m.
Many South Africans had long suspected that such a big consignment of drugs could not be lost from police custody without the involvement in one way or another of senior police officers.
Though the involvement of senior politicians was always suspected, it would be impossible without the involvement of senior police officers.
Similarly, many other heists in SA, including the theft of large amounts of ammunition during the 2021 riots, were not possible without the knowledge and involvement of senior people in government.
It is a huge relief that Senona is among the names already confirmed for further investigation by the specialised investigative team recently set up.
Other nefarious heads of important law enforcement agencies such as Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri, and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department deputy boss Julius Mkhwanazi are also gladly part of the priority list for investigation.
The successful prosecution and sentencing of these officials, where the allegations against them are proven beyond reasonable doubt, will send the right signals in our national fight against lawlessness and organised crime.
The investigators must do a quality job with these cases.
While the actions of Ramaphosa are well and good, the underlying architecture that made this horrible situation possible remains intact.
In fact, it may remain intact even after all the actions are taken, after the police service is cleaned up and perhaps even after top politicians are prosecuted and jailed.
This is the architecture of greed, power and dominance which remains a wildly seductive force for all mankind and their political formations.
It is this toxic combination that leads to obsession with control without any limits.
It leads to the formation of cabals, and the consequent stratification of society into those who deem themselves to hold power and those over whom power is wielded.
This old problem has been solved already.
The latest solutions simply require the distribution of power and responsibility, and the establishment of accountability through checks and balances.
Yet there often emerge backward leaders who think they can revert to the primitive driving forces of greed, power and domination, because they think they can do greed, power and domination “better”.
The attempt by the ANC-led alliance to dominate all sectors of society, government, business and everything else was precisely this attempt.
To this end, cadre deployment has been a policy commitment of the dominant political elite for the entire democratic era.
Its results are incompetence, corruption and ultimately the criminal takeover of the state.
The lived experience is joblessness, mass murder, rape, violent robbery, fraud and industrial-scale crime, poverty and economic stagnation.
When politicians subvert the state architecture to achieve political dominance, it is inevitable that others including criminals, being also master opportunists, will follow.
Unless we lose our appetite for dominance and value co-operation instead, we will struggle to appreciate the importance of the separation of powers that allows politicians to focus on smart policy while administrators administer without fear or favour.
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