Former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo says he has little confidence in the Hawks and believes South Africa cannot win the fight against corruption without a capable and effective police force.
Zondo was speaking at the South African Council of Churches’ National Anti-Corruption conference in Johannesburg.
He warns that corruption has become so widespread that, in some respects, the country has regressed from where it was before democracy, 30 years ago.
Zondo criticises the disbanding of the elite crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions, saying it allowed criminality to flourish with devastating consequences for ordinary South Africans.
“In the early 2000s, we had the Scorpions, which were very effective in fighting corruption. Criminals had begun to fear them. But in the 2007 ANC elective conference, a resolution was taken to disband them. The results are there for all of us to see. A number of cases that were lodged with the Hawks by the Prasa board, as far as I know, in 2025, we have heard of no arrests.”
The retired Chief Justice says the country has waged the fight against corruption for over thirty years with no success in reducing the scourge.
SA losing 30-year war on corruption: Zondo
Electoral system
Zondo says the electoral system in which MPs are accountable to their political parties and NOT the electorate, is another factor that is contributing to corruption in South Africa.
“We remain represented by political parties in parliament and legislatures. This system gives party bosses too much power. This means that if the party boss wants members of parliament who are members of their party to vote in a certain way, they will control them. And therefore, the victim there is the fight against corruption. Because they will make sure that such a vote does not succeed. We have been there.”
South African Council of Churches’ General Secretary, Mazwandile Molo, says the church must also play its part in fighting corruption and protecting whistleblowers.
“What is it that we can do as the church to strengthen the Chapter 9 institutions? How do we design education programmes for churches in society so that we go into the formation of people rather than fighting corruption there? Because corruption doesn’t start at the Mayor’s office. It starts at our own private spaces and with what we are doing.”
The event was attended by church leaders, members of the judiciary, and other officials, including the Auditor General, Tsakani Maluleke.
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