Will the Madlanga commission be any different?
In a matter of just four days, another commission of inquiry – seemingly the South African governments’ favourite way to pass the proverbial buck – will get underway to look at the state of policing and, by extension, the judicial system at large in this country.
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System – known as the Madlanga commission – is the direct consequence of the much-talked-about allegations of impropriety made by KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi about two months or so ago.
Mkhwanazi called a press briefing, clad in combative police gear, surrounded by police officers armed to the teeth, to level accusations that the now-suspended police minister, Senzo Mchunu, and high-ranking police officers were in cahoots with criminals, compromising the very mandate given to them to ensure the safety and security of the nation.
The allegations also suggested that members of the judiciary were involved in the wrongdoing, thus warranting a wide-ranging probe as set out in the terms of reference of the commission headed by Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga.
Now, the stage is set at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria, kicking off on Wednesday.
Lt-Gen Mkhwanazi is set to be the first witness to take the hot seat, and nothing short of fireworks is expected.
Yet, the mood generally from the nation seems, if Sunday World is reading it accurately, to be one of ambivalence. Of course, we could have misread the atmosphere. But if we are indeed on the button, the people who are sceptical going into another commission of inquiry, the umpteenth one in South Africa’s storied political past, if nothing or anything will come of it. It is a widely shared sentiment, which even influenced the constitution of the commission itself.
It would be amiss not to acknowledge the built-in mechanism of the Madlanga commission aimed at giving more sting and bite, complete with inbuilt milestones for deliverables.
It will remain a game of wait and see for many doubters by the perceived waste of resources that many commissions of inquiry have turned out to be in the past.
The most expensive of them all was reportedly the Commission into Allegations of State Capture that was led by former chief justice Raymond Zondo, which is said to have cost about R1-billion.
The jury is still out on whether SA will ever see its return on that expenditure.
Pencilled in to run over a shorter period of time, the Madlanga commission is set to cost a lot less, yet the tens of millions of rands South Africa will pay for it is nothing to scoff at. Juxtapose those on the very expensive talk shop named the National Dialogue that is reportedly going to make the national purse R700-million lighter, then a picture emerges of just how much money we throw at problems that should really be handled by functional everyday organs of state.
Money we don’t have.
Yes, we hope the Madlanga commission will turn out differently from many of its ilk and give us not only solutions but blueprints to refer to in the future.
