With South Africa’s dawn of democracy some 30 odd years ago, some buzzwords became the order of the day as freedom fighters grappled with the mammoth task of governing a modern state. Prominent among those is “task team”.
There was a lot in the to-do tray of the new government that carried the hopes and aspirations of millions of South Africans who had for centuries been denied the most basic rights because of the colour of their skin.
Then some bright spark, not out of malice, came up with the idea of a task team to tackle a given problem as a liberated nation grappled with the business at hand. With time and as the allure of new-found freedom lost its lustre as reality set in, the phrase came to be regarded in some quarters as euphemism for the precursor to the proverbial kicking of the can down the road.
Indeed time and experience proved that a liberator does not necessarily make for good governance. The announcement of the formation of a task team came to represent a veil to hide incompetence.
Indeed, how many task teams down the years went on to carry the assignment at hand with any breathtaking results? A few would pass the test with flying colours but as for the majority the less said the better.
A brilliant idea meant to turn talk into tangible, measurable action came to be viewed in time as of little more value than a South African politician, especially in government, promising to “leave no stone unturned”. The nation has simply been fed one too many of such promises to attach any serious weight and belief in what “task teams” would do to right the wrong in question.
These thoughts came to mind with the news that new Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu had decided to disband a unit tasked with investigating political killings. Such assassinations have stubbornly and unfortunately stayed with us and are very much part of the political landscape, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Today we are telling, among other stories, the tale of apparent deliberate botch-up of the investigation of the 2017 assassination of prominent politician Sindiso Magaqa, a former secretary-general of the ANC Youth League, and the heartbreaking tale of the widow of Sammy Mpatlanyane, an antigraft whistleblower who was shot dead in his bedroom 15 years ago. Both crimes are yet to be solved.
The two cases alone adequately sum up the failures of the police task team, and its imminent disbandment is an official admission of the monumental failure.
Mchunu himself conceded as much.
It must cut open afresh wounds of families and loved ones of the victims of the killings such as Pinky Mpatlanyane, who told of the devastation her husband Sammy Mpatlanyane’s murder brought upon the extended family. A daughter who witnessed his callous murder in her teens and is still battling the trauma today.
We hope the closure of the task team doesn’t close the book but opens a new meaningful chapter to tackle a problem that has no place in a democracy.
