‘You have failed us at so many levels’: Dr Allan Boesak calls out Ramaphosa over Madlanga report, SAPS

President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the State of the Nation Address. Not only has renowned politician and anti-apartheid activist Reverend Dr Allan Boesak said that President Cyril Ramaphosa should fire officials implicated in Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee and Madlanga Commission, but he would also advise the president to resign. In an interviewwith Newzroom Afrikaon Sunday, Boesak said Ramaphosa should fire officials who have been implicated in criminal activities brought to light at the commission, chaired by Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga.

The commission identified prima facie evidence of criminal conduct and corruption, prompting immediate referrals for criminal investigation, urgent prosecutorial decisions, and disciplinary action. Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee have been investigating allegations of police corruption and political interference ventilated by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Police Commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. Boesak criticised how the president has kept the interim Madlanga report private, and only relayed certain bits of information through his own perspective, instead of making it public.

He said that he would tell Ramaphosa how “everybody who has been involved in criminal action that’s in your purview, that’s from the president’s office, right down, fire them”. “I would even say to the president, ‘You have failed us at so many levels and in such a deep, deep, deep way in terms of what your office expects of you, and what your people expect and demand of you, that you should begin by resigning yourself. “Let us start from over,” Boesak said.

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“This government that we have, immoral as it is, by elevating people who celebrate, and profit, and benefit from genocide…I mean, that just in itself is so immoral, I can’t even find the word to speak about it.” Boesak has said that South Africans should “stop what is happening right now, (and) start from the very beginning”. “Not just a new conversation about morality, but a new conversation of the way we govern, and the way we respond to our responsibilities, that, in my view, is not just democratically given by our people, but demanded by God.”

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