Outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter survives an attempt at cyanide poisoning. The bodyguard of Fort Hare University vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu dies in an assassination hit that seems to have been meant for Buhlungu himself.
This news in the first few weeks of a new year must do more than have us simply despair at the lawlessness and criminality gripping SA. What these assassination attempts mean is that fewer South Africans will be willing to put up their hands for the jobs required to rehabilitate and reform our country and state.
For those considering these roles, the disincentives are already stark: these institutions are often large, unwieldy, chaotic. Even without criminal motivations, there will be many inside them who are stridently opposed to reform, and while certain reform initiatives will no doubt be obvious, attainment of more holistic rehabilitation will be far more uncertain.
Results, even of successful effort, will often take years to be shown. Throw in tight budgetary constraints further imperilling success, and the upside of these roles seems scant.
Chaos, complexity, challenge: thankfully there are a few who do not balk at the task. But if the calculations of assuming an exceedingly tough job have also to include a willingness to put your life on the line when revival and reform requires taking on entrenched criminal elements, the number of those willing to report for duty shrinks yet further.
Yet SA’s history points to a surprisingly significant number of people who were prepared to offer up their lives in a defence of a greater cause in the interests of the majority. Nelson Mandela famously said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
But even if the sacrifice cashes out in the same way — in defence of a democratic SA responsive to the needs of ordinary South Africans — it still resonates somewhat less inspiringly to be asked to pay the ultimate price in a battle against substandard coal deliveries, or catering tenders, say, when compared with the struggle for an SA free of apartheid.
It seems an even more quixotic ask when considering that those whose job requirements now demand such willingness can’t count on the solidarity and support of their higher-ups. De Ruyter tendered his resignation in December, reportedly before the poisoning attempt but not before mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe had accused Eskom management of “agitating for the overthrow of the state”. Seriously, who wants to die a martyr when your own supposed compadres are calling you a traitor.
We can talk all we want about shoring up the checks and balances within institutions, strengthening them so they withstand the erosions of malign or incompetent incumbency, but in many instances this is the stuff of fairytales. Institutions aren’t self-actualising; they depend on effective leadership and personnel. That is even more true at these points of inflection, when institutions are to be saved and reformed.
In light of these recent revelations, you have to ask who sensibly and with any instinct for self-preservation is putting up their hand?
Ironically, President Cyril Ramaphosa has insisted that 2023 is the year in which SA showcases what the country has to offer the world in leadership, capability, co-operation and social compacting. Unless he plans on offering up body bags and leadership vacancies for which no principled person is applying, he needs to immediately heed Buhlungu’s words: “I need the person who runs the country to say to me and to my executive and my staff: ‘You can rest assured you are covered, you are protected, you are safe.’”
• Fritz, a public interest lawyer, is director of the Helen Suzman Foundation.
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