The Bureau for Economic Research at Stellenbosch University has devised three scenarios for the economic future of SA. The scenarios have received some media coverage, including South Africa’s future: Three economic scenarios explored.
The purpose of this note is to examine one aspect of the most desirable of the scenarios, the economic high road over which the “Fish Eagle” soars, leaving the Hadedas and Maribus of the less desirable futures out of favour.
By some strange quirk of serendipity the bird the economic researchers have chosen for the high-road scenario matches the symbol chosen by Accountability Now as a nickname for the replacement of the Hawks (the SAPS directorate for priority crime investigation) with the Eagles (a disbandment-proof and independent successor to the long-disbanded Scorpions) in the currently feeble anti-corruption part of the criminal justice administration which continues to limp badly.
This sad state of affairs is due to the lack of political will needed for government to effect the reform ordered by the Constitutional Court in the Glenister litigation.
Accountability Now’s rationale for choosing Eagles is that Eagles fly higher, see further and hunt bigger prey than the Hawks have ever done in any of their three incarnations since 2009. The Hawks date back to that year, when they were first established as a directorate within SAPS to take over the investigative functions of the disbanded Scorpions anti-corruption unit within the NPA. Now in their third iteration, the Hawks have never shone at corruption busting.
The BER’s choice of the fish eagle symbol for SA’s “high road” economic future is accordingly apposite.
A critical aspect of maximising sustainable economic growth is to create conditions that boost business confidence in SA to such an extent that new job-creating investments are made by those, both at home and abroad, who currently hesitate to so invest. To abandon the three feathered metaphors briefly, the cart should not be put before the horse if the high road to the economic future of SA is to be trodden by our workless masses and our overtaxed income earners. One passage in the report referenced above is on the rise of the Fish Eagles, it stands out:
“Importantly, it’s a story of implementation, not new plans. SA successfully uses the current political window to fix the basics and rapidly deliver on its reform agenda, supported by a step-change in execution.”
Rule of law
Confidence in the return of the rule of law and the concomitant safety of investing here and in initiating the development of new economic activity does not happen without first implementing the swift and simple reform needed to enhance the capacity of the state to deal with serious corruption effectively.
The political will to do so is currently lacking. Empty promises and governance by sleight of hand on the corruption front are now seen for what they are: the anti-corruption new dawn of Ramaphoria has proved to be a chimera. Hopefully, the notion of a Fish Eagle future will inspire policymakers in the GNU to implement the bold reforms needed swiftly to secure the high road to the economic future of the country.
The template for the reform of the criminal justice system’s ability to counter the corrupt is key. It is already in place in the jurisprudence of our highest court. What is lacking is the political will to do what the court has ordered Parliament to do in the way of reform of the law:
“…our law demands a body outside executive control to deal effectively with corruption.”
These are the words of the majority of the Constitutional Court in its seminal “Glenister Two” judgment – a judgment which has not been properly enforced at any time since its delivery in 2011.
SA still does not have any such body. Instead, the Zondo Commission established as a fact that state capture – the repurposing of the state for private gain – has taken place in SA. The Madlanga Commission is currently examining executive interference in the political killings task team in SAPS by the suspended minister of police. Any prosecution, including the long overdue prosecution of the corrupt in SA, is only as good as the investigation that preceded it.
In the third and last of the Glenister cases, the then Chief Justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, opened the majority judgment of his court with the following broadside:
“Corruption is rife in this country and stringent measures are required to contain this malady before it graduates into something terminal. We are in one accord that South Africa needs an agency dedicated to the containment and eventual eradication of the scourge of corruption. We also agree that the entity must enjoy adequate structural and operational independence to deliver effectively and efficiently on its core mandate.”
No such body exists
That “agency” is meant to be a body outside executive control that is equipped to deal effectively with corruption. The immediate, but curable, problem SA now faces is that no such body exists.
The NPA and SAPS are demonstrably not specialist bodies that are outside executive control. The extent of the control of the minister of police over the SAPS is part of the subject matter of the Madlanga Commission. It is plain from the wording of section 179 of the Constitution that the NPA is no more than a programme within the department of justice. NPA policy is subject to the concurrence of the minister of justice who enjoys “final responsibility over” the NPA. The accounting officer of the NPA is the director general of justice; all senior appointments (and dis-appointments) in the NPA are the duty of the president. None of these features are the stuff of being “outside executive control”.
While reform of the NPA and SAPS is desirable, the main reform that is required by the highest court in the land involves the creation of a new single body outside executive control that has the features laid down in law by the court in Glenister Two. A specialist body of trained experts in anti-corruption work, independent in its structure and operations, resourced in guaranteed fashion and secure in its tenure of office is the type of body the court requires in terms that bind government.
These criteria have become known as the STIRS criteria; their existence in law was acknowledged by the acting minister of police when he gave evidence before the ad hoc committee of the National Assembly that is pondering the complaints made by Lt Gen N Mhkwanazi in July 2025. And yet no STIRS-compliant body exists in SA.
Neither the NPA nor the SAPS are specialist, stand-alone bodies of the kind required by the Glenister rulings.
With amazing foresight our top court has identified the inwardness of the problem besetting the capacity of the state to counter the corrupt. It is the tendency of the executive to harbour, protect and excuse the corrupt in its ranks and in the ranks of its supporters in Parliament and its friends elsewhere.
Prima facie corrupt activities
The Zondo Commission identified more than ninety leading members of the ANC whom it found needed to be investigated for their prima facie corrupt activities. To date only one of them has faced the consequences of his criminality in our courts. He is convict Vincent Smith, a corrupt former ANC member of Parliament. Zizi Kodwa, also elected as an ANC member of Parliament, has had charges against him withdrawn and then reinstated by Shamila Batohi, as a parting gift, in January 2026, while the rest of those pointed out by the Zondo Commission continue to enjoy impunity.
All those who wish to rely on or invoke the rule of law in support of the calls for an end to the corruption with impunity that infests the body politic in SA would do well to have regard to the binding nature of the Glenister rulings and to the failure of the state to implement them. A final judgment on appeal handed down by our apex court ought to be respected and implemented if the rule of law is to be regarded as a meaningful part of governance in SA.
One current member of Parliament has taken action on the anti-corruption front. She is the honourable Glynnis Breytenbach, former shadow minister of justice in the sixth Parliament and currently co-chair of the constitutional review committee in the seventh Parliament. Breytenbach is the sponsor of two private member’s bills currently pending in Parliament that envisage the establishment and enabling of a new Chapter Nine body, a commission against corruption, that is designed to comply with the requirements laid down by the court as its “STIRS criteria” for the type of body it requires Parliament to form.
Once the political will to amend the Constitution to do so is summoned and actioned, it will be possible to persuade many more of those hesitant to invest in SA that the country has turned the corner on due respect for the rule of law. The long-awaited new investments for which the president, and all who wish SA well, long will begin to flow.
A scenario in which the BER’s Fish Eagles soar over SA is distinctly possible, if the political will to effect the reform required by our highest court is summoned.
Reform a la Glenister will restore business confidence as the rule of law is secured by the success of the reform of the anti-corruption capacity of the state. The desired investments will then flow. Success in the anti-corruption reform process is a necessary precursor to the economic turn-around that a prosperous and secure future for SA needs.
[Image: By Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa – African fish eagle, Haliaeetus vocifer, at Lake Chivero, Harare, Zimbabwe, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45086782]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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