Lamola, DJCD&CS, G4S, and Parliament owe South Africans answers on the unfolding Thabo Bester saga answers

Parliament puts on this act when it does not take itself seriously

The story behind infamous escapee Facebook serial rapist Thabo Bester and his colourful partner Dr. Nandipha Magudumana, both, we are told, recently arrested in Tanzania, is, unfolding in a jagged edge of dramatic sense. It appears Thabo and Nandipha are contesting for South Africa’s modern-day ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ movie. Yet the investigation is turning into a circus, if not a tragicomedy, evidencing gross incompetence, alleged corruption, failed leadership, and a tirade of errors committed by DCS, SAPS, and GS4.

I, however, wish to bring another dimension to the fore. While apprehending suspects of crime must be welcomed anytime and anywhere, we dare not become inebriated to, in a blindfold sense, ignore the more significant vibrating dereliction that plays out in the Bester saga. This very Parliament, where members today seek to pretend to be serious and sincere in their oversight mandate, warrants to explain itself to South Africa.

Beyond the social media drama, gossip, and the slew of statements from the State, some pertinent and critical aspects cannot be lost in the translation. In contrast, most are excited to hear who aided Bester, who played what role, and who was bribed from a low-ranking correctional office to arguably the highest official and the part of G4S officials; we owe it to ourselves to ask what to make of the circus of Parliamentary hearings unfolding around the subject of Bester’s now confirmed death and subsequent embarrassing to DJD&CS better understood in Justice and correctional services departments.

Recently Minister of Justice and DJD&CS, (Ronald Lamola and it’s officials) were compelled to publicly confess that the body of the person it proclaimed died in prison was not Thabo Bester, as they misled SA. Lamola, in his own drama, relays how he first learned of this through the investigating judge Cameron who extended a telephone call to him before the hearing.

Lamola claims to have been shocked to the point that he had to sit down and gather himself. Lamola continues to share how he extended a telephone call to the Commissioner after collecting himself. However, this conversation sees a less perturbed commissioner allay Lamola by lulling him into things being under control. Lamola, on his part, nowhere exerts any authority but casually accepts what he is told and becomes, in a sense, subservient to the Commissioner as the one that directs things. By his own admission, I wish to register the lack of leadership Lamola inadvertently acknowledges since he needed to be kept informed by the Commissioner, who, as admitted, had access to information that the judge became the first person to relay to the Minister.

Thabo Bester’s escapades include arson, claimed deaths, body collections by Nandipha, and his being alive again, most probably would have died a natural death. However, Bester and his medical practitioner girlfriend cum-wife, depending on which way the wind blows, have a penchant for drawing attention, resulting in the couple being spotted in places and his death questioned. Lamola and his brigade would have wished the citing of Bester was fake because his living stare presents not just a conundrum for now arrested Bester and his accomplished as secured in Tanzania.

If you think this is personal, Lamola was at the helm of another incident, that of Malawian-born’ prophet’ Shepherd Bushiri. Bushiri, until now, is escaping facing the might of the law and justice demands. Bushiri is back in his country of birth, Malawi, and no one will get him to meet, from rape to money laundering charges. A criminal parading as a pastor and prophet left SA and will never return here again regardless of what beneficiary Lamola, one-person-Zuma-must-go placard-beneficiary will tell you.

I still hold Thabo Bester if it is his name; being dead then again alive evidences a nightmare for the cohort of Minister Lamola and Parliament. The more considerable embarrassment is for Lamola, particularly since, in the same presser, he had to concede the UAE application to have the infamous Guptas extradited failed because a UAE court made a legal ruling that saw the application as not having any merits.

I had submitted that the subject of a Gupta arrest is another figment Lamola released at a crucial media-vantage point when Ramaphosa was buckling under the pressure of his Phala Phala crimes. Some contend the Guptas never spent one night in any UAE jail as Lamola and his brigade misled South Africans to believe they may have been called in for a talk but never spent any night in prison. My thesis is that sharing a Gupta arrest at that juncture increasingly confirms a decoy, nothing more, nothing less.

Lost in the translation is Parliament doing oversight of these inquiries. This week we lived through the interviews it had with DCS and a private company called G4S. When you hear the parliamentarians raise questions, you could be deceived to think these epitomize the finest advocates and activists for Justice with a mature and developed sense of what constitutes constitutional endorsed and entrusted oversight. Previous sessions of this nature have consistently exposed the bigotry in-between personal attention-seeking of cross-party members. Parliamentarians with this inquiry, hope SA takes it seriously yet.

It failed to take itself seriously when it could allow itself to be used in political expediency to subterfuge its own adopted processes of keeping the executive accountable on the Phala Phala panel report. The same ANC majority MPs rejected reason and the constitution and abandoned its own instituted process that could prove President Ramaphosa innocent. Instead, they opted to compromise Parliament in its functionary constitutional role of oversight by accepting executive Ramaphosa’s instructions that it suspends all actions until structures answerable to the executive have concluded their investigations.

This is an abrogation of responsibility. It’s an aberration of duty, and it is subservience to grotesque proportions. We could never trust Parliament again, which could be this pliable and subservient to one politician’s second-term ambitions. Executive Party members of the ANC until now have yet to learn what happened on Phala Phala, the one whom they blindly defended until now has given them all the proverbial double finger since he is in charge. The entire Parliament was subjected to the interests of an individual whose political expiry date has come and gone. To see parliamentarians trying to steal the limelight, we are not fooled because a fundamental subject is missed.

When Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament Glynnis Breytenbach attempts to play bulldog prosecutor in these hearings, South Africans are not fooled since her so-called legal mind was absent to aid Parliament on the essential criteria to run a prison.

However, on a question from DA’s Glynnis Breytenbach regarding who takes responsibility for this Bester incident, Lamola admits he has failed to keep South Africans and the victims of Bester’s egregious crimes protected. For this, Lamola tends an apology. Yet his apology is an empty statement meaning he, as a jurist, fails to appreciate culpability. I concur with Breytenbach that Lamola’s inaction cannot be bailed out by a singular telephone call he extended to the Commissioner—the same he somehow sees as the totality of his oversight task.

It is not unfair to conclude that from a legal point of view, the entire escape of Thabo Bester and his accomplice is not for media consumption because he is a fugitive of the law and was sentenced and imprisoned, so this issue as flagged attest to a moot point.

There appears to be an attempt to have the fundamental role players escape responsibility and culpability. However, at a primary level, DJCG&CS and Parliament are undeniable role players we must keep accountable. In this regard, I would like to locate the two role players not absolving SAPS.

DJCD&CS and its political Head, Ronald Lamola

• Regarding the DJCD&CS, Minister Ronald Ozzy Lamola must take full responsibility for this entire debacle. When I state this here, it is not an ad-hominem abusive contention, but it is from a principle of effective and present leadership. The same I will advance Lamola is wholly incapable of. He, along with his department, appointed the private company G4S. It is self-evident that GS4, as a private entity, is not equipped to manage and operate any prison, let alone a Maximum Prison.

• There appears substance to suggest a rethink of the current DJCD&CS, which attests to a lethargic elephant incapable of functioning in South Africans’ interest. Primarily because it affords too much incompetence at an individual level, the department must be split again because it is clear that the individuals in charge are not competent, be that the Minister and his subordinates.

• The irony of the Bester case is then used to mask the complete failure of the Minister to understand his role as the executive authority. He and Parliament are equally culpable and they need to take full responsibility for the Thabo Bester debacle and not look for the guilty running around.

Parliament and its Constitutional Obligations and Oversight Role

• On the subject of Parliament, the basic criteria for operating a prison should have been set by this very tjatjarige Parliament, particularly when they became aware of the outsourcing of Prisons.

• Therefore, this case has shown again that our Parliament needs to understand its mandate & more so, what they are supposed to do Constitutionally.

• Parliament must explain to South African citizens how it, as one of three spheres of state power, is questioning a non-state institution about the function of the State. It translates to the question, how do you hold them accountable or, to put it differently, who takes responsibility because this was an outsourced arrangement with a private entity?

• This again underscores the challenge of outsourcing public responsibility since it innately holds this kind of effect. The State, we remind ourselves, consists of three arms, Executive, Legislator & Judiciary. From where the expression ‘trias politics.’

• The legislature approves presented budgets and vets departments’ performance, and has inescapable oversight over all government departments, entities & companies from its fiduciary mandate. While the legislature will, with this hearing, boast about them being active in oversight, it is silent on its concomitant role in this saga since it failed to draft and approve the criteria for operating a prison.

• The issue of outsourcing to Private companies is permissible, and that goes through a tendering process. The rules & procedures which the departments determine are then presented in Parliament for approval. The budgets are then presented as part of their outputs.

When parliamentarians sit today and put up this ‘The Great Escape of Bester’ featuring Nandipha, G4S, SAPS, DCS, and Lamola – TV show, we must ask them: What relationship does Parliament have with G4S to call a private company to come and account? The bigger vibrating question from where did the wisdom emanate to outsource a constitutional mandate of DCS to a private company? Help us understand in what capacity and by what law Parliament can pretend it can seek answers from the private company when it fails to hold its custodian of DCS not really in contempt.

The circus of these hearings has nothing to do with the legislature oversight demands nor the ethical convictions that are communicated. It is a political show where parties can bid for media attention as always misguided to flex a punctured muscle. You see this with the Public Protector Investigation led by Dyantji [who, some contend he, tries hard to imitate Mbeki in public address stance] as chair, pretending he, notwithstanding Dali Mpofu’s at time pathetic performance as a jurist, is taking oversight seriously when he is the face of ANC factional political guillotine earmarked to deal with Mkhwebane. The unveiled blame game between DCS, SAPS, and this private company GS4 must not confuse us not to keep Parliament itself accountable.

The cardinal question is why the undeniably inept, suffocating, and bumbling Lamola’s head is not being called for. He answers that he will not resign for the Bester case, yet the failed extraditions of Bushiri and Gupta evidence his incompetence. In this instance, the incompetence of DJDS&CS translates to Lamola’s incompetence as a failed political leader who could not protect Bester’s victims or South Africa, be that in the Gupta, Bushiri, and Bester cases.

Will Bester be allowed to live to tell the real story, or will he die in a stray bullet because too many names higher up may fall out of the cupboard? Let us hope Bester live, and the truth emerges. Then again, this Mzansi, anything is possible. Bester, who has no verified SA identity, we were told died but is alive; several bodies appear involved in this crime. The Minister is as shocked as he was when the UAE turned down his Gupta extradition; Bushiri is still not returned. Mzansi is alive with possibilities.

It is my submission that we have with Ronald Ozzy Lamola confirmed the juniorisation of a pivotal ministry. Don’t get me wrong; it’s about something other than age. It’s about the evidencing lack of capacity, Lamola should have been a sports or arts and culture minister since he lacks the wherewithal to fit the big shoes, and SA has been limping with him in that vital position. Lamola has dismally failed on the Bushiri, Guptas, and Bester; what more must he fail South Africans before he is relieved as a liability?