KZN watchdog to remain

We live in a country with corruption at every level of society. We have seen such corruption at almost every level of government.

The situation has now arisen in Kwazulu-Natal (KZN), where the ruling party wants to get rid of the current chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, ACDP provincial leader, Jo-Ann Downs.

As the Tshwane region of the ACDP, we support Jo-Ann Downs wholeheartedly in her quest to drive out corruption in Kwazulu-Natal, or anywhere else she may find corruption.

Of course, the ANC (ruling party in Kwazulu-Natal) claims that Jo-Ann Downs "has turned the agriculture department saga into her personal project, feeding it to the media to enhance her political career."

However, a day after the above claims were reported on, the "KwaZulu-Natal agriculture and environmental affairs department limped to its latest crisis on Thursday [2008-02-21] when its head, Modidima Mannya, was suspended by premier S'bu Ndebele."

Further, some ANC sources have said that they were unhappy of the way Downs ran the committee and that she was "too critical" of the ANC.

My contention is that this is the real reason they want to sack her from the chairmanship. The ANC has proven to this nation and its people that they do not respond well when confronted with criticism and/or investigations of alleged corruption of its top officials. We have seen that all too clearly in the NPA-Pikoli-Scorpions saga. It seems to me that they would rather get rid of whistle blowers than corruption.

To get rid of Jo-Ann Downs will simply exarcerbate the problems in KZN. What use would it be to put a 'yes'-man in charge of the committee? 'Yes'-men get nothing done! In fact, they are the ones that eventually stab you in the back. That is what happened to Julius Caesar when Marcus Junius Brutus assassinated him. Brutus used to be one of Julius Caesar's 'yes'-men who later turned against Caesar.

'Yes'-men do not have the courage to be real leaders and cannot think for themselves. Is this what the ANC wants? I hope not.

If the ANC ruling authority in KZN is really serious about ridding the province of corruption, they will need to let Jo-Ann Downs do her job.

The ACDP will always fight corruption wherever it is found. Apart from such corruption being so obviously morally wrong, it is also socially wrong. It harms the nation at a large scale. When the government allows corruption to continue within its own walls, it grants the nation the right to do the same. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. This will prove to be disastrous for any nation, when a culture of corruption becomes the overarching culture.

The lowest form of human life is when a people appointed leader steals from the people, or works corruptly with the people's money. A democratic government must always remember, that it is not the government per se. It is only the government insomuch as the people have given them governmental representation for the people. As the famed 16th president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln, said in his famous Gettysburg Address, the government is "of the people, by the people, for the people." The government has no right to allow anyone to mismanage or steal the people's money.

When a leader abuses the trust of the people, he no longer deserves to be a leader of the people, and should be removed from leadership. To lead a nation is not just an arbitrary job or aspiration! It is a sacred duty!

So, my call to the leaders of this nation is to mean it when they speak against corruption, and that they will ensure that the best people are fighting against it.

Update @ 15:15:
The ANC has axed Jo-Ann Downs and instead gave the chairmanship to National Democratic Convention’s (Nadeco’s) Hawu Mbatha. As I have felt all along, so some opposition members of the legislature feel that this move by the ANC is to "cover up corruption in agriculture."