ONE must join those who marvel at the intelligence and foxiness of one Thabo Bester who, with just a primary school education, has managed to have the whole country wrapped around his little finger. You have to wonder where he would have been if he used his considerable skills in a positive way.
While some of his crimes are brutal and fatal, others, such as the businesses he ran from prison, including addressing conferences from “America” when he was in fact in a prison cell in Mangaung, are the very embodiment of sophistication and finesse. He even had very important personalities in our society wishing him Happy Birthday in song.
He conned the entire criminal justice system, the property market and the banking sector in his many escapades. In the process, he gave us an ample peep into the cesspit of criminality and sleaze that South Africa has become. And we should all be thoroughly alarmed.
You simply have to listen to parliamentary hearings in which ministers in the criminal justice system, prison officials, the private company that has been given the rights to run two prisons in the country, the contempt with which the obviously corrupt G4S holds the authority of the state, the hand-wring deference to the company by the government, the almost inexplicable tardiness on the part of the state in dealing with the Thabo Bester shenanigans, to realize how much trouble we are in. This gives credence to talk taking the rounds to the effect that politically connected people are shareholders in G4S.
The Thabo Bester saga has lifted the lid to enable us to see a bit of the layers of criminality that runs this country at every level and in different sectors of our lives. This explains in part why crime is out of control and the state seems incapable of taming it.
Whole rail tracks are stripped and carted away. Electricity pylons are felled by thieving thugs to the extent that large parts of the capital city of Tshwane are left in the dark for days. What can we protect if we cannot secure the seat of government?
The so-called construction mafia has managed to stop construction at different sites through intimidation and actual harm of workers but the state seems completely incapable of dealing with the problem.
It is time for the citizens of this country to stand up and ensure we do not descend into a mafia state. Crooked as he might be, Thabo Bester has demonstrated to us how far the underworld has gone in running the country. The political leadership has either ceded its responsibility to criminal networks or is in cahoots with the crooks.
South Africa belongs to the citizens. It does not belong to political parties, their leaders or civil servants. These operate and serve at the behest of citizens. It is only a civilly educated citizenry that can bring corruption and criminality to an end.
However, the South African citizenry seems to defer too much to political parties and their leaders, thereby allowing a tail to wag the dog.
Religious leaders, traditional leaders and civil society organisations in all their manifestations, need to embark on a rigorous campaign to mobilise and educate the citizens of this country about their rights, obligation and the true powers they have in shaping the destiny of the country.
South Africa is the only country we have. We don’t have any other. If we don’t fight to keep it out of the hands of the crooks, we would descend further into a mafia or failed state.
Do we want to be another Somalia or Libya? Where will we run to if that came to pass?
- Mosibudi Mangena is the former Minister of Science and Technology, ex-Deputy Minister of Education and retired President of the Azanian People’s Organisation.
