‘I am not God’

Ineptitude rewarded once again [View this email in your browser]( August 10, 2020 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, In the ruling ANC, loyalty is king and sucking at your job won’t hurt your career prospects. Just ask Dikeledi Magadzi. Earlier this year, the Zondo commission heard how parliament’s portfolio committee on transport deemed it “not opportune” to interrogate the Gupta brothers in 2016 when the press reported that they were trying to rig the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) tender for new locomotives and to gain representation on the board of the entity. As the former chairperson of the committee, Magadzi testified that she could not explain the committee’s rationale, beyond the fact that MPs discussed the allegations but decided not to act on these further. “Chairperson, I don’t necessarily have an answer as to why we did not call the Gupta brothers, but let me indicate that our discussion in the committee led us to a situation where we did not call the Gupta brothers,” she said. This concession followed another — that ANC MPs were bound at all times to respect the imperatives of the governing party while carrying out their parliamentary duties — as Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo grilled Magadzi about why the committee did nothing to halt the waste of tens of billions at Prasa on her watch. Magadzi said a Sunday Times report implicating the Gupta family, and the subsequent letter from Democratic Alliance MP Manny de Freitas suggesting they be called before the committee, was not taken to the ANC study group. The committee was, therefore, not acting directly on party instructions on the matter, she added, but all ANC MPs were bound to be guided by the party’s manifesto when they arrived at the legislature. She told evidence leader Alec Freund this was why she later opposed a motion for an ad hoc parliamentary inquiry into state capture. “I am not in Parliament as myself; I am representing the African National Congress and that will ensure that each and every time I toe the party line and that is what I did,” Magadzi said. “The ANC said we are not going to support that motion … When the party said, ‘this is the route we are going to take’, you cannot deviate from the route the party has said you must follow.” She added that she would, with hindsight, take the same decision today, out of loyalty to the ANC. That loyalty is important and may explain why Magadzi, who once remarked after the drowning of five-year-old [Michael Komape]( in a pit latrine that she wasn’t “the MEC of toilets”, hasn’t disappeared in one flush. Speaking about his cabinet made of dead wood and flotsam on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “Water is our country’s most critical natural resource”. Magadzi has now been placed in the water and sanitation ministry as deputy minister. Why? We’re sure she’ll fit in just fine in the department, which for years has been contaminated with corruption and gross mismanagement. It is the kind of callousness she exhibited months after Komape’s death that defines her. This is hardly an extraordinary turn of events. After her utterances, Magadzi was made deputy minister of transport. As she told [eNCA in an interview about what had happened]( “If something happens, so be it. I am not God.” To many of us, that is already self-evident, but where she took a left turn of logic was to conclude that that fact prevents her from fulfilling a basic government mandate. What she was saying was rather simple and quite common among government officials: [Michael Komape was a nobody]( from a place no one cares about and born to parents with nothing to their names. Because of this, his rights to life and dignity were too far beneath her notice. As per usual, the government has to be sheepdogged into doing its job. Public interest law centre [Section 27]( has been campaigning for dignified and safe school sanitation and the eradication of pit toilets in Limpopo since 2012. On Friday, the Limpopo high court [heard the state has failed to comply with a court order to eradicate unsafe and unhygienic toilets](. Judge Gerrit Muller, who heard the case when it was first brought to the court in November 2017, again presided in this latest chapter of the Komape case. Three years ago, Muller rejected the Komapes’ damages claim for emotional shock and grief, but upheld the claim for future medical expenses for Michael’s siblings. He also ordered the provincial department of education to eradicate unsafe and unhygienic toilets at rural schools and provide the court with a report explaining how it intends to do so by the end of July 2018. In December 2019, the Supreme Court of Appeal awarded the Komape family R1.4-million in damages for emotional shock and grief, overturning the previous decision by the court. The group argues that the department has underspent on infrastructure at schools. The state argues that it could achieve the eradication of pit toilets at schools only by March 2031. As Ramaphosa noted, water is an important resource. He would also have you believe that so too are South Africa’s nobodies like Michael Komape and his parents. But until we see meaningful action and appropriate appointments, he will stand a liar. Yours in solidarity, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences or unsubscribe here.]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( Mail & Guardian Media LTD · 25 Owl St · Braamfontein · Johannesburg, Gauteng 2001 · South Africa