Attempts by former presidents Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki to get retired Constitutional Court Justice Sisi Khampepe to recuse herself from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission cases inquiry will not be opposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The relatives of the victims involved in the cases are right in being angered and puzzled by Ramaphosa's somersault regarding the commission.
Image: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
So President Cyril Ramaphosa wants you all fellow South Africans to believe that he, the thorough man of processes and procedures, went ahead and appointed retired Judge Sisi Khampepe without having her background properly checked?
When faced with serious allegations involving, say, a member of his cabinet or a comrade – and there’s a string of these – Ramaphosa often goes through the careful, slow and deliberate processes and bureaucratic procedures that have come to define his leadership style. He won’t “rush” into a decision, even when the citizens and opposition parties are baying for that person’s blood, or that scandal is damaging to democracy and good governance, etc. When a key position needs urgent filling, he often takes his sweet time. But now he tells us via the courts that he went ahead and appointed Khampepe unawares she had been part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the National Prosecutions Authority (NPA).
The whole commission is about the TRC commission, a quasi-judicial process in which legal professionals were involved and which was televised and publicised widely. Khampepe is a prominent judge – well known and well loved by some, and fiercely detested by others because of her long legal career.
The question asked by Hlekani Rikhotso, a sister of an activist who disappeared in the 1980s after being sold out to the apartheid security operatives, shouldn’t be left hanging as if it was a rhetorical one. It needs to be answered.
“How do you appoint someone without checking their background?”
How indeed can any leader in a country desperately in need of cleaning up and renewing? Any leader anywhere, let alone a whole president who regularly has a string of crucial appointments to make?
Clearly, the president doesn’t want, or never wanted in the first place, or has since changed his mind about wanting the truth to come out of the TRC Cases Inquiry. He seems intent on derailing the very commission he set up. Why?
Some really shocking evidence has already come out during the hearings, including allegations that suggest criminal behaviour on the part of a former justice minister. This should be welcome airing of the truth for a president who came in on a “Thuma Mina” renewal and clean-up ticket.
Why is Ramaphosa derailing his own commission?