Accountability! Experienced journalist Gerhard Rheeder said after last week’s council meeting, “There is no more accountability.”
It was like a light turning on for me. Crime, gender-based violence, corruption, fraud, theft, sewage flowing into dams, street lights that don’t work, a mayor who blows almost R2m on a New Year’s party, are not the problem – accountability is. The guilty are no longer held accountable.

And if they are not held accountable, they do it again. The spectators see that they are getting away with it and join in the looting party. Doors are slammed in the faces of newspapers and journalists who are supposed to be the watchdogs. Spokespeople, presidents, and chairpersons ignore enquiries.
They have an attitude of ‘ignore them, later they will forget about it’.

Or as with the sawing down of the Dennesig pine plantation, they lie, and no one is held accountable. Last year, enquiries were made to municipal spokesperson Lerato Kgomo, an employee whose salary is paid by us, the taxpayers. The enquiries were simply ignored. Just like the enquiries about the Medina abattoir.

The Middelburg Observer sent questions to the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality on October 31, but three months later, we still don’t have any feedback.
What’s shocking is that there are council members elected by taxpayers who do not ensure accountability. The consequences? Our town is decaying.
Look at what our cemeteries look like, street lights do not work, and garbage collection takes place in the evening hours because a contract was concluded late.

But, it is not only with the police and local government, it’s also even in sport. The provincial cycling championships are held on a dangerous route; participants have to park in long grass, and the area is a crime den teeming with prostitutes. After the Middelburg Observer reported on it, the disappointing action is not to correct what went wrong. Our questions are answered half-heartedly.

This is followed up with threats and efforts to find scapegoats who leaked the information. Meanwhile, the information was not leaked second-hand but experienced first-hand by the newspaper’s journalist. The same with the failed Mpumalanga marathon. Answers are sought, but the elected president, Paul Bester, simply does not answer his cellphone, although he undertook to provide more information after an initial interview. Accountability? Zero.

The most shocking examples are two assassinations.
March 2024: Sibongakonke (Konke) Sylvester Zwane (39) was driving down Wes Street in his Volkswagen Amarok late in the afternoon when a vehicle suddenly appeared behind him. A man hung out of a window like an Italian mafia gangster. Several shots hit the Amarok. Zwane, the general manager of Zwane Inspections, tried to get away from his attackers. He turned right into Beyers Naude Street. The Amarok came to a stop at the slipway to the underground parking of Wonderpark Spar. Despite medical attention, he died moments later in the hospital.

Mashoza Malaza’s assassins wanted to make sure he died. He was shot, and his house was set on fire. An attack he survived The reasons for the attacks were due to multi-million rand mining contracts. Malaza was the owner of UMI Plant Hire, which won a contract with Exxaro in 2021. While he was in Phumula, Mhluzi, on February 2, 2025, at 22:10, he was shot seven times in front of several bystanders. Police later found 11 spent cartridges from a 9mm handgun at the scene. On December 10 last year, enquiries were sent to the Communication Department of the South African Police – dead silence. On January 5, the enquiries were followed up – dead silence.

Two businessmen were killed in assassinations, and the police cannot say how the investigations are progressing. Have there been any arrests?
No accountability. The assassins are laughing. Why? They know that in South Africa, responsibility is no longer taken for such acts. The country is suffering. Victims are suffering. Taxpayers are suffering. We have become spectators of injustice. Irish philosopher and rhetorician Edmund Burke once said, “Evil triumphs only because good people do nothing.” Doing nothing is easy, but also dangerous. Where there is no resistance to evil, it spreads quickly, and we can see it in our beautiful town.

It’s time good people start doing something. It’s time to hold people accountable.