CORRUPTION UNDERLYING WANDILE BOZWANA’S ASSASSINATION
Wandile Bozwana , a businessman from North West province died in a hail of bullets in Pretoria.
Why did he die at the hands of an assassin? According to media reports he courted danger over the years because of alleged tender rigging and alleged corrupt business practices. In an interview he gave before his death, he himself contended that there was an enormous fight going on between those inside government and those outside of it to get tenders. In his estimation, people in government received more tenders than people like himself. Regulations did not matter. The size of the tender pie depended on seniority in government: the higher up the ladder, the bigger the slice.
The dominant lion had to eat first and eat to its full.
As the fight for tenders developed, court battles raged between Bozwana and the North West government. These battles provide the context in which this assassination should be understood. Corruption exacted its toll.
Bozwana challenged the termination of his contract in court and won two court orders. These allowed him to attach as many as 40 vehicles and to block the province on the use R30-million of its funds. That was not the end of it. The matter proceeded right up to the Constitutional Court. While judgment was reserved, the matter was becoming very public and very serious indeed. Someone or the other in the North West government was overcome with trepidation.
Now is the time to bring out the lie detector and to do thorough life style audits on the politicians and officials of the North West.
Corruption needs thick curtains. State power is therefore used to keep them closed. There is much too much that is going on in the provincial government of the North West that needs to be peeped at behind the curtains.
Even though people in our country are angry about corruption, it continues unabated. Every day, the ugly and brutal face of corruption, within and outside of government, manifests itself in some scandal or horror story. President Zuma will have us believe that there is zero tolerance for corruption from his government. We know the contrary. There is zero tolerance for prosecutorial scrutiny of senior government people including himself. That is why the Zuma government disbanded the Scorpions in such haste. That is why the National Prosecution authority moved Willy Hofmeyr sideways. The government has thoroughly weakened and manipulated the agencies of state so that they can no longer nail corrupt politicians. Corruption, therefore, has minimal consequences for the dominant players in our politics.
When President Zuma speaks of zero tolerance of corruption, he is mouthing a platitude. He has no credibility whatsoever in that regard. If parliament did not have so many toadies on the government benches and in the cabinet, the country could have stopped the high tide of corruption becoming the tsunami that it is. Corruption in government is pervasive because cover for it is extensive.
The assassination of Wandile Bozwana shows that the mafia is nested inside as well as outside the government. The corruption stakes are very huge and all the top players in government and business want their share.
South Africans must commit their full support to the anti-corruption movement that has now sprung up in the country. We must stop corruption through our activism because corruption is spreading chaos in our country and impoverishing everyone with the exception of the corrupt few and the very rich.
Furthermore, we repeat our call for voters of South Africa to create powerful voter blocs or voters coalition and not to give away their votes as individuals. If voter blocs come together to form a super bloc, voters will strengthen their hand considerably in enforcing government to be accountable, honest and transparent. In our view, if citizens use their votes strategically, they will succeed in exerting a powerful influence on government to curb crime, corruption and cronyism. Wandile Bozwana’s assassination is symptomatic of something very rotten in the province of the North West and in the state of South Africa. This is a siren call for us to act while there is still time to arrest the advancing rot.
Issued by Dennis Bloem, Cope Spokesperson, 5 October 2015
