Don't you buy the government's assurances that the rollout will be free of corruption?
No, we don't. That's precisely why we've written to the ministers of health and finance for a public adjudication process insofar as the storage and distribution of the vaccine is concerned. Government has not covered itself in glory in dealing with these matters. The PPE [personal protective equipment scandal] is the most recent incident, notwithstanding the general corruption that has prevailed in government.
After PPE came the Gauteng school-sanitising scandal …
Government has been tripping from one scandal to the next, and it is worrisome. But we are quite confident in the work of the SIU [Special Investigating Unit]. Having met with them yesterday, the progress report speaks to law-enforcement agencies that are responding to our injunctions and directives as a committee on some of these issues. They have to be dealt with with speed.
Does the government have the capacity to prevent another PPE?
Yes, those mechanisms are there, built in law and the constitution.
Does it have the political will?
The political will in many respects is absent. It is, amongst other things, why corruption is perpetuated in the absence of consequence management and successful prosecutions. There have been positive changes in these law-enforcement agencies which inspire hope. However, we should not be relying on them because they're a corrective action mechanism. The duty of good governance should be a day-to-day reality. All the things we are doing as a committee or law-enforcement agencies or even the media, we are reacting to things that are happening, after the fact.
Does the appointment of Deputy President David Mabuza to lead the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) in charge of the vaccine rollout inspire confidence?
We've got a problem with IMCs insofar as their line function and accountability is concerned. We've had IMCs before, into Eskom and into the municipal debt to Eskom. So the issue is less to do with the deputy president as the structure itself and whether it is effective. We've got little confidence in IMCs generally. Who do they account to in parliament? Because parliament is structured to respond to departments, there's an accountability vacuum when it comes to IMCs.
So leading this process we have someone who is soiled with allegations of corruption and will be totally unaccountable?
It's not a matter of being totally unaccountable, it's a matter of creating structures in parliament for accountability.
Meanwhile it doesn't bode well for a clean process, does it?
That's why we are calling for a public adjudication process of the tenders for the storage and rollout of the vaccines. Precisely to push back the frontiers of corruption.
Do you find it disturbing that major ANC funders have been lobbying top ANC leadership for a slice of the action?
That would be tantamount to meddling. Businesses who are competent and who qualify must bid for the tenders like everybody else. There can be no special treatment.
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