It would be sheer naivety to regard the assassination of newly appointed Ekurhuleni divisional head of corporate and forensic audits Mpho Mafole merely as senseless. What is senseless is why society, and in particular the government, has let the situation descend to such despicable levels.
Mafole died on Monday after he found himself on the end of a hail of bullets that left no doubt that whoever carried out the dastardly and cowardly act wanted to make sure that he stood no chance of escaping with his life.
Mafole joined the City of Ekurhuleni as chief auditor just three months ago, at the beginning of April, from the Auditor-General of SA, where he had worked for 15 years. He must have hit the ground running in his assignment to help root out corruption in the metro to produce a report that he handed in to the executive mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza.
The mayor paid tribute to Mafole and said he had an unrelenting commitment to fight and eliminate corruption all the while championing the highest standards of service to the city’s ratepayers.
Xhakaza was quoted as saying: “Mpho was not only a hero to Ekurhuleni, but a national hero whose legacy must be remembered and honoured.”
Parliament’s portfolio committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs said Mafole had “brought with him an impressive track record of public service… He was tasked with uncovering financial irregularities and promoting transparency” in the metro.
Glowing words indeed for a young life, at 47, that was cut way too short and, in the process, denying not only Ekurhuleni but the wider nation of the kind of talent and commitment SA needs to pull itself up by its bootstraps. It is widely believed it was his compilation of the report, as well as his work in unravelling the corruption in the city, that cost him his life.
The stench of corruption involving municipal officials in towns and cities in this country reeks to high heavens, whereas on the ground, residents are lamenting the lack of service delivery while they haplessly watch their areas decay further.
Corruption has robbed our cities blind and turned them into living, if not rotting, monuments to incompetence that has stained and ruined the post-1994 dispensation. Now it has clearly reached abominable levels where we are regularly witnessing the unashamed and cold-blooded murders of those trying to give the nation a fighting chance, such as Mafole.
Many similar assassinations have taken place in other towns and cities that can be traced back to corruption, which shows what levels it can reach if it were to go on unchecked.
A name that comes to mind, although at a slightly higher level of government, is that of Babita Deokaran, who was assassinated similarly for exposing and fighting corruption at Tembisa Hospital, also in Ekurhuleni.
Mafole’s killers are still at large, and we urge anyone with information to help bring them to book to contact the police.
But the clarion call to the government at all levels is to up the ante so that heroes such as Mafole and Deokaran do not to die in vain.
