What does Democracy mean? Part 2

In any sensible society, any sign of excessive wealth displayed by a public servant, whether he be a Politician or simply an employee of a Government Department, should be questioned, and explanations demanded.  A Manager of a small Department should not be entitled to drive a large and expensive limousine on the public ticket.  In other times and places, such a person would have been dragged from his vehicle and hung from the nearest lamppost.  A little extreme, perhaps, but certainly a way to make a point, and certainly better than burning down three schools to force the local municipality to build a road.  The Press, which so loudly proclaims its right to intervene in the lives of private citizens ‘in the interests of the public’, is generally deathly silent when it comes to accusations against senior Politicians. They, in common with business and industry, fear retribution, perhaps justifiably. Yet the scourge of Apartheid could have been stopped in its tracks by an even mildly competent and honest Press corps (perhaps working in concert with Churches in the interpretation of the Bible).  The 69% unemployment rate in the Eastern Cape Province in 1996 could have been cut to less than 10% if the Press had actively exposed the waste and incompetence of the Provincial Government, rather than the 72% that prevails in 2017. The disastrous education system could have been saved from 23 years of lying about the results of its ‘education’ of pupils if the Press had revealed the fallacies of the claims by the successive Ministers. The Iraq War could have been prevented, or stopped at an early stage if the Press had ventured to ask some pointed questions, not just related to the reasons for the war, the conduct of the war and the planning for the war, both of which have been proven to have been abysmally incompetent, but also by asking “Who will really benefit from this war?”  To understand more in this regard, see “Follow the Money”, to come.

A good starting point would be to establish a special body which is only responsible to the electorate, and should therefore be elected directly by the electorate, rather than being appointed by the Government in power, with the mandate to investigate, expose and bring to trial all wrongdoing in Government.  That body should be supported by an independent judiciary, and by the passing of a law which doubles the penalty for any crime by a person in a position of trust, particularly elected Politicians and Civil Servants, with a provision that any spurious legal manoeuvring by them in an attempt to evade the consequences of their wrongful conduct should incur additional penalties.  To make this even more effective, no legal costs for defence should be borne by the Government or any Government body if the accused is found guilty of the crime charged.  The investigating body should start its work with an investigation of the highest in the land, and continue to monitor every person who has been investigated, regardless of the outcome.  The claim that this will interfere in their privacy may be rebuked by the fact that each Politician chose to become one, and so has consented to intensive public scrutiny of his personal affairs.  This scrutiny should continue for at least several years after his departure from office.

Another start point would be the exposure of all Government contracts to public scrutiny.  They are, after all, an expenditure of public money, taxpayer money.  “All” means “all”, without exception.  Many Government bodies would resist this, for better or worse reasons.  The CIA would resist this strongly, but this system would have prevented the excesses of the CIA support of the Shah of Iran, which resulted in the Islamic Revolution and all the problems that came from this, as well as the Contra Arms deal, which resulted in a massive loss of respect for the US worldwide.  Similar measures would have prevented the French Government support of the Hutus in Ruanda, leading to a genocide, and to the Apartheid Government’s support of Frelimo in Mozambique and Unita in Angola in order to promote the civil wars and so instability in the neighbouring countries.  It might have prevented the enrichment of Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Muamar Gadhafi and all the numerous dictators who appear on the stage to rob the people they are elected to represent, and the impoverishment of many nations.

Finally, a good way to avoid the excesses of politicians would be to tie the taxes payable by citizens directly to the expenditure.  Allow the citizens to decide whether they wish to pay their share of the cost of security guards for the politicians, the limousines for Civil Servants, the executive jet for the President, the splendid health care provisions voted by Politicians for themselves, and so on.  Let these votes be published by an independent body, with the provision that no taxes be levied for more than three months after the voting period if the results have not been published. An effective way to do this would be to attach a list of the items of expenditure by Government, each item as a percentage of the tax paid by the taxpayer, along with the tax return, with checkboxes alongside each item showing that the taxpayer approves or disapproves of the item. This will very quickly demonstrate to the Politicians that they are being watched and judged.

Perhaps the major reason why democracy does not function as it should is the Party system, under which the Party bosses decide who should stand for election, and what their consciences should dictate. The system allows the bosses to dictate to the Branches who should be on the list for election, who should be elected President or Prime Minister, who should be a Cabinet Minister, and what the policies of the Government they control should be. In none of these does the average citizen play any role, and the election of a person to Parliament or Congress is largely a reward, in salary terms, for obedience to the Party line. In practical terms, most ‘democracies are really dictatorships, with the power reside in in the few Party bosses who call the shots. The real wishes and desires of the voters seldom play any meaningful role in how their elected representatives act or what they do. It is seldom that a representative chooses to vote according to his conscience – such an act would be tantamount to political suicide, unless it happens to coincide with the Party line. Even worse is the fact that, in a balanced democracy, the selection of people to become Ministers, even if it is done according to ability, is limited to those loyal members who have gained the chance to be elected by strict adherence to the rules set by the Party bosses, not, by any stretch of the imagination, as a result of their ability or intelligence, and the field of selection is reduced to the proportion of the public supporting that Party. It is almost unheard of for a highly-capable person from another Party being selected to hold a ministerial position, one in which his or her capabilities would be able to be exercised. In almost every case, the appointment of a person as Minister or Deputy Minister is made as a form of reward for service, in the past or the future, with little regard to the suitability of that person for the post. In South Africa, under President Zuma, the extent of this form of corruption is easily seen in the fact that there are nearly a hundred Ministers and Deputy Ministers, most of whom, if credible reports can be believed, have their hands deep in the cookie jar. One would be hard pressed to find even one amongst this horde who has demonstrated a real capability to do the job. If one were to manage a business in this way, any clear-thinking critic would recognise it as a formula for bankruptcy, yet, for some reason, it is the political way of doing things.

It is clear that the Party-political system was designed by politicians who have at heart their own best interests, regardless of their protestations that they ‘represent the people’. They do not. They represent themselves, almost to the exclusion of the people.

Perhaps the most meaningful changes that could be brought about to support democracy as a principle would be the following:

• Ban Parties. Ensure that the people select those who will represent them from amongst themselves, on the basis of their proven honesty, integrity and capability.
• Make it illegal for any grouping of persons to attempt to influence the votes of those representatives in Parliament or Congress by any form of coercion or reward.
• Elect the President or Prime Minister by direct vote of the electorate, from the numbers of those who were elected as representatives, with a requirement for such election being that the candidates present their qualifications and the reasons they consider themselves suitable in a standardised format, so that the voters are able to compare their qualities and their honesty easily.
• Ensure that the appointment of a Minister or Deputy Minister is made by a majority vote of the representatives after they have been cleared of any suspicion of dishonesty and have shown their credentials as ‘fit and proper persons’ for the job in the same way as a candidate for a senior banking position, with the investigation of these credentials being conducted by a person enjoying the confidence of at least 70% of the representatives.
• Allow a demand for a new election of a President or Prime Minister by at least 30% of the representatives, with those making the demand responsible to pay the costs should the incumbent be re-elected.
• In the event of a Court judgment involving dishonesty being given against a representative, a Minister or Deputy Minister or a President or Prime Minister, that person should be declared ineligible for the position and an election of a replacement within a month precipitated.

Other rules will be necessary, but the intention of every rule should be to ensure that the person selected to play a role in Government enjoys the trust and confidence of the electorate, considers himself to be responsible to the electorate and accountable to it and acts in accordance with that belief, and has the necessary qualifications in terms of integrity, trustworthiness, intelligence, skills and experience to be able to perform competently in the position of trust he or she will occupy.

Is this utopia, or is it what we all really want in our democracies?

What does Democracy mean? Part 1

The ideal for which Democracy stands is that each person in a State has an effective say in the Government which rules him or her, that he or she has a voice in the amount of taxes paid, and how these taxes are spent or invested, that the Government is responsible to the people.

The reality of “Democracy” is quite different.  The race to be elected is not spurred by a burning desire to apply one’s skills, abilities and intelligence to the ultimate ‘good of the people’, but rather a desire to join the gravy train.  Government provides an almost unparalleled income-generating opportunity.  Once the race is ‘won’ and the contestant ‘comes to power’ (both very revealing phrases), the process begins, of rewarding those who have supported the campaign, as well as those who are expected to have an influence in the next campaign, of building a ‘power base’, and of milking the Government funds for personal benefit.  The proportions of effort, and therefore of the flow of money and benefits from Government sources to each of these depends to a large extent on the country in which the candidate finds himself, on the sophistication of the electorate, on the efficiency and independence of the monitoring institutions, and on the degree of security felt by the politician.

First come the personal benefits – the Mercedes, Porsche, BMW or Range Rover, the salary and expense account, and similar matters.  Once this is in the process of being attended to, the politician sets about appointing his personal staff, including secretaries, personal assistants and bodyguards (is it not strange that every politician, who claims to be appointed by the people and to represent the people, has such a fear of the people that an entourage of bodyguards is considered essential, presumably to protect the ‘valuable’ person of the politician from the people?  Winston Churchill, as Prime Minister of Britain during the Second World War, needed only one bodyguard!). The security staff of the President of South Africa numbers more than seven thousand!  It is an established tradition in Third World countries, such as South Africa, that the appointment of a person to a senior post brings with it the opportunity to appoint numerous others in more junior positions, each one of them paying a proportion of his or her inflated salary to the senior person in the chain, and/or repaying that person by means of support and silence in acts which would not receive the approval of the electorate.  In this way, the benefits of Government service to the incumbents of managerial positions are inflated well beyond the relative average salary, while the capabilities of the persons actually doing the work are well below the requirement, with the consequence that the standard of performance of Government is generally below that in the private sector.  It is certainly no coincidence that the Eastern Cape Provincial Government in South Africa employed some 30 000 persons who showed up at their offices only once each month, to collect their paycheques.  This was admitted by the Premier of the Province, who stated in 1996 that the situation needed correction.  When a Management Consultancy offered to undertake an investigation at no charge to enumerate the workers and non-workers on the payroll, the offer was summarily declined!  The Premier obviously did not want this information to go on record!  A conversation with a senior person in Government in 2009 indicated that this situation had not yet been corrected. 

When the politician has had the opportunity to strengthen his connections in the power hierarchy of government, the next phase begins.  This is the granting of lucrative contracts to favoured persons, either as a reward for support given or to be given, or, more usually, as a simple business transaction, with the politician, his family, close friends or Party associates taking a substantial payment from the proceeds of the contracts.  Very often this payment is brazenly demanded in advance.  A company which was negotiating a contract (in 1996) valued at R12 000 000 was told by a ‘representative’ of a Provincial Premier that the normal fee, payable in cash in advance, was 15%, or R1 800 000.  When the company manager expressed surprise at this demand, he was told ‘do not be concerned – the 15% includes the Premier and the Provincial Minister for Economic Affairs’!  In other words, the payoff was probably sufficient to satisfy most ‘claims’ for illicit payments.  In another case, a building contractor was granted a contract to construct some 9 000 RDP houses, at a cost of R15 000 each.  He immediately on-sold the contract at R9 000 each, pocketing the difference of R6 000 per house.  It is reasonable to assume that he did not retain the whole of this difference – 15% (apparently the going rate) of R15 000 is R2 250 per house, a total bribe of R20 250 000.  At that time, it was almost impossible to build a house of any quality for R15 000, a fact borne out recently by the Government announcement that it was planning to spend over R90 000 per house on necessary renovations to bring them to a habitable state.  While inflation has savaged the South African economy in the intervening years, one is constrained to ask who was picking up the payoff in this case.

The newly-elected Prime Minister of the Bahamas, some two months after his ‘victory’ over the previous incumbent, was asked by a telephone caller on a radio chat show why it was taking so long for him to award the profitable contracts to his supporters, who had gone out on a limb to support him during the election campaign.  In some embarrassment, he explained that Government contracts had to be awarded in open tender, and advised the caller to contact him privately to discuss the matter. The content of that private telephone call would certainly be of interest to scholars of the democratic system.

As time goes on, and the newly-elected representatives of the people become more secure in their positions, they start spreading their nets more widely.  They support ‘peoples’ liberation groups’ in their ‘struggle for freedom’ or send ‘peacekeeping forces’ to those war-torn areas that they had created.  This is usually not done as an altruistic venture, but for hard-headed business reasons.  Robert Mugabe, President of a destitute Zimbabwe, sent a ‘peacekeeping force’ to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in support of threatened DRC President Joseph Kabila, and received a payoff of 50% of the three richest diamond mines in the country, a benefit which he, magnanimously, shared with the Zimbabwean Minister of Defence, a key man in keeping Mugabe in power in Zimbabwe against the will of the people. The mines were summarily expropriated from the Belgian owner, who had built them up at his own cost, with no compensation being paid.

They enter into purchases of vast amounts of equipment, often for military purposes, but almost always with a personal benefit by way of bribe.  The sums involved are enormous – in one clear case, the President of an African country was paid a bribe of $20 000 000 by one of the major munitions suppliers.  This set the standard in that country, and subsequent attempts to place large contracts have involved values three to four times the size of the initial contract.

It does not need to be said that the money leaking from these transactions into the Swiss bank accounts of the people in power represents only a small percentage of the total amount of money wasted – a bribe of 15% of the value of a contract leaves 85% to be ‘value’.  The question is whether this 85% is real value to the purchaser, the people represented by the free-spending Government who, at the end, pay for it, either by payment of taxes or by non-delivery of the services and benefits for which the taxes were raised in the first place.  In most cases it would be reasonable to say that there was no real need for the goods purchased.  The Zimbabwean people did not benefit in any way from the sending of a ‘peacekeeping force’ to the DRC, the South African people did not need, or benefit from, the purchase of Navy vessels, fighter jets and helicopters, and the American people did not benefit from the Iraq war.  There are small groups of people who receive some benefit in each case – the Zimbabwean and American soldiers who might otherwise have been unemployed, the groups of military officers who saw their personal power bases, and prospects for added income, enhanced, and the politicians who arranged for some of the work to be done in their constituency, with a big payoff in terms of votes, but the total benefit is almost always much less than the total cost.  It would have been infinitely cheaper to have paid the bribes directly to the politicians involved and avoided the additional 85% occasioned by entering into the contracts.

The largest problems, of course, are that the public who are being fleeced in this way are not sufficiently interested to investigate each action by the Government, probably because the officials involved take care to ensure that they are never given the full and unadorned facts of the matter, and that the ‘watchdogs’ who are there to protect the public interest are not sufficiently vigilant or are part of the system.  The Police, a body designed to detect, correct and deter crime, consist of people who are dependent for their jobs on the very people they should be watching. Unfortunately, their appointment was based on the fact that their loyalty to those people would ensure that no meaningful investigation of corruption by their patrons would ever ensue. A telling proof of this is the statement to Parliament by the Minister of Police that the whole of the R246 000 000 spent by the State on the private residence of the President was justified as ‘security upgrades’. (one may be excused for wondering how a mud hut could need a quarter of a billion Rands in ‘security upgrades’!). Of course, the Party ensured that this outright lie, by the Minister and by the President was endorsed by the ANC MPs, who shouted down the members of the Opposition during the debate on this report, and so earned the disapprobation of the Constitutional Court for the dereliction of their Constitutional duty to hold the Executive to account. A similar situation occurred when President Mbeki avoided any Parliament debate on the honesty of the multi-billion Dollar Arms Procurement deal that made so many ANC members wealthy.

The public has little or no interest in actively participating in the monitoring of the people who serve them, probably because the obstacles and risks in doing so are so great.  Generally, Joe the Plumber does not feel that he has any ability to detect wrongdoing or to do anything to correct it, or, if he does actually act, he becomes a target for people who wield massive power.  The woman worker in the Department of Defense in the USA who detected some serious wrongdoing by officials in the Department, involving the giving of contracts with little control and contrary to regulations, found herself suspended shortly after she had brought the situation to the attention of senior officials.  Although the matter subsequently came to the attention of the TV media, it was a short-term wonder, with no result.  She was subsequently discharged from her job after many years of service. Perhaps the fact that the Deputy President of the country was a substantial shareholder in the benefitting company had something to do with the outcome. An investigation by the German Police into the bribing of a senior South Africa politician in the granting of a very large contract came to an end after the South African authorities (the Police, supported by the criminals in high Government positions) refused to provide a file required for the investigation. (One may deduce from this case that the German Police are honest and driven solely by law, while the South African Police acted entirely in the interests of the highly-placed Ministers and officials who profited from the crime.) An investigation by the British Police into alleged illegal payments to a Saudi Prince in the negotiations for a large aerospace contract came to a sudden end when the Saudi Government threatened to cut off negotiations in other contracts.  The Speaker of the English House of Commons went to great lengths to prevent the publication of wrongful or excessive expense claims by Parliamentarians.  When these expense claims were published, without the permission of the Government, the Speaker was forced to resign his position, but was immediately rewarded for his ‘sterling work’ by an elevation to the Peerage.  This latter is one of the few cases where the actions of a person with information received the support they deserved from the Press, even though the action of the ruling Party was not what any sane voter would have expected.  The list of known or strongly suspected wrongdoings by Politicians all over the world is very long, yet the list of corrections is extremely short.  Do not believe that these wrongful acts are a mere peccadillo.  Adolph Hitler could have been stopped in his tracks at an early stage if people of courage had stood up to stop him.  Unfortunately, those who were afraid to talk numbered in the tens of millions, including the ordinary German citizens, who recognised that his actions were not right, but were afraid to talk out in the face of perceived public support and a very real threat of retribution by Hitler’s thugs. That form of internal terrorism was supported by a British Prime Minister, who wanted ‘peace in our time’ at any cost. 

In order for evil to prevail, it is only necessary that good men do nothing.

 

Some thoughts to bring about a return of sanity in South Africa

 

 

 

It is clear to any thinking observer that Jacob Zuma has not only captured major parts of the State, but he has also captured the leaders of the ANC. Too many of the top people have hitched their wagons to the star of this corrupt man to expect them to make rational decisions in the interests of the country and its people. Their only interest lies in maintaining their power, and that depends on the ANC remaining the dominant Party in Parliament.

However, the top people in the ANC are not the majority of voters, and the key to unseating Zuma and his evil cohorts is to bring the real truth to the knowledge of the voters, something that Zuma and his gang have worked assiduously to prevent happening. They have captured the SABC, on which the majority of the rural population rely for news and views, and they have captured the popular Press. These media feed a carefully-planned diet of adulterated news to the public, avoiding any reporting of criticism of Zuma and his gang, while maintaining the fiction that sends them to cast their vote for the ANC, time after time, regardless of how the country is sinking into the well of national destitution. The average voter is not stupid, but has not been educated to understand precisely what the ANC is doing to his or her country. That is true even of the ANC backbenchers in Parliament. An hour spent listening to the inane comments spouted by these comments must convince even the most hardened socialist that they have zero understanding of the probable effects of the ANC policies and actions, as well as inactions, on the country and its voters. The point has been made that these backbenchers continue to support Zuma because failure to do so will place them on the unemployed list, and one of them have skills, training or professional qualifications to fall back on when that happens. Their only hope for receiving a continuation of their present good income is the maintenance of Jacob Zuma in power, regardless of what that will do to the country, regardless of the overwhelming evidence of what it has already done to the country.

What is needed is an intensification of the efforts to bring down the criminals running the country and the ANC. This may take two routes.

The first route is for the DA, as the Party likely to succeed the ANC, to announce that it will undertake a Truth and Reconciliation process, in which people who can show that they actively worked against corruption will be granted immunity for their participation in it. If a businessman or a civil servant provides evidence to a responsible body, such as the Police, the Public Protector or a political Party which took action on that information, showing evidence of a corrupt act, that person will be immune from prosecution under the incoming Government. That simple announcement will free those potential whistleblowers of the fears that cause them to work for a continuation of the current corrupt regime, and permit them to bring to the attention of the public the acts to which they have been party. The announcement, coupled with a statement of a firm intention to prosecute any act of corruption with the intention of ensuring long jail sentences for those who do not confess now, will go a long way towards loosening the ties of fear that bind those who might otherwise want to see South Africa prosper.

The second route is to find ways to ensure that the vast majority of potential voters know and understand what is actually happening to their country, so that they will be equipped with facts and understanding when they go to the polling stations. That could be achieved by distributing free or at very low cost radios that are fix-tuned to a radio station that provides accurate and complete information. This should be done with an intention not to provide information that is attuned only to the cause of the DA. The objective is to develop an intelligent and rounded voter base, people who understand that there are always plusses and minuses in any situation, and that careful thought must be applied to every claim made by a political Party. We do not need to reinforce the ‘yes-man’ situation that the ANC has cultivated. We need intelligent, informed voters, who can guide the Parties in their actions in Parliament. The cost of such a radio will be very low, but the benefit for the country will be massive.

Currently, South Africa is firmly on the way to becoming a replica of Zimbabwe, Zambia and all the other African basket-case countries, dominated by a group of self-seeking plunderers, with an ever-decreasing ability on the part of the public to stop the decline. Innovative and urgent action is needed to reverse the trend, and inspiring speeches in Parliament do not fill the need. The average person no longer trusts a politician to do what he says he will. He needs reasons to believe again.