Johannesburg – Embedded in our collective mind as the current adult generation should be an unmitigated fact that we hold this resource, South Africa, in trust on behalf of this youthful generation and generations to come.
It thus behoves on all of us that since we are trustees of this resource, we accordingly have to act at all material times with integrity, ethically and in sync with the dictates of our constitution we so lovingly breathed into democratic South Africa in 1996.
The future of our children, grandchildren and great children is in our hands.
Any behaviour we portray and display, which is inconsistent with our constitution, should be abhorred by all of us without fear or favour.
South Africans must stand as one even before the criminal justice kicks in to prosecute those who had, have or continue to wrong society and deplete unduly this resource to the disadvantage of this generation and future generations.
South Africans have a moral duty to denounce publicly in their various formations – be it in their stokvels, burial or social societies – corruption and rebuke those who pilfer the coffers of South Africa Incorporated without winking even before the long arm of the criminal justice system clutches them.
This we do by becoming credible whistleblowers. No thieving or corruption occur in a vacuum.
Policies in the public, as well as in the corporate spaces, are crafted and enacted in law in a manner so distinct that were we to be active whistleblowers, corrupt politicians, public servants and corporate executives in their numbers would have been wearing orange overalls by now.
A fortnight or so ago, I was invited to engage with pupils at a school in the leafy area of Fourways in Johannesburg.
The request was specific. The school wanted me to address them on intelligence as the “spy boss of domestic intelligence in South Africa”.
Before I could venture my address, they humbly and respectfully requested that they be the ones throwing all manner of questions in respect of my job to me. Oh, was I not on the dock for a good measure of an hour.
They wanted to know how safe they are in school from all manner of attacks: criminals, scammers and terrorists. So, we engaged truthfully and honestly with one another.
I assured them with authority that they are all safe in school and at their various homes. I gave them another assurance that our airspace, seas, oceans and land spaces are all free from terrorism.
Crime is of concern to them; dare I say to all of us. I again assured them that the police and the private security companies are doing their best to protect us.
We were sailing well with our engagement and I felt that I would be acquitted at the end of the trial until one pupils threw a curved ball and asked: “Sir; you being a spy boss in the country, how come there is so much corruption in our government?” I worriedly ventured to address this question.
They were adamant that our president seemingly is the only one who detests corruption. I assured them that we are all at one with our president in terms of fighting to root out corruption.
The SAPS (SA Police Service), SIU (special investigating unit), Hawks and NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) arrest and prosecute every day, in particular, some corrupt politicians and public servants.
This last question about corruption worried me immensely. Here are pupils seeing that as trustees of their inheritance, SA Inc, we hold this resource, which is theirs, dishonestly.
I assured them that we are hard at work correcting our bad past in order to save their resource by ensuring that those who thieved in the past face the full might of our criminal justice system.
I assured them that successful prosecution of politicians and public servants will serve as a deterrent to would-be corrupt politicians and public servants.
I told them that as a “spy boss in the domestic branch of the State Security Agency [SSA]”, together with my colleagues in SAPS, Hawks, NPA and DCS (Department of Correctional Service), we will ensure that we root out corruption.
Our children don’t trust that we are good trustees of their SA Inc.
Let us show them that we are worthy of their trust.
By Sam Muofhe.
• Muofhe is SSA domestic director-general.
