In July 2018, former US president Barack Obama delivered a stinging rebuke of today's shameless political leaders who believe in “strongman politics” and when they are caught in a lie, they just double down and lie more.
Obama was speaking during the annual Nelson Mandela lecture held at the Wanderers cricket stadium in Johannesburg. He said: “We see utter loss of shame among political leaders where they are caught in a lie and they just double down and lie more. The denial of facts runs counter to democracy.”
While his message at the time was seen as a veiled attack on his successor Donald Trump, its true meaning would have reverberated 13km from the Wanderers stadium at the Johannesburg magistrate's court on Wednesday where former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini was convicted of perjury.
She was found guilty by magistrate Betty Khumalo of lying under oath during a 2017 inquiry into the social grants debacle that brought uncertainty to millions of grant beneficiaries.
Khumalo said she was satisfied Dlamini testified and gave false evidence during the inquiry in 2017. In her defence during the trial, Dlamini said through her lawyer that she did not intentionally lie during her testimony at the inquiry.
“If she made a false statement [then] she did not know that it was false because it is possible and it does happen,” her attorney Tshepiso Mphahlane told the court.
For far too long in this country shameless political leaders have got away with lying in public without consequences. Dlamini is not the first political leader to lie in public and probably will not be the last.
Former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba was found to having lied under oath in 2018 about the private terminal at OR Tambo International Airport. But Gigaba walked away scot-free.
Therefore, Dlamini's conviction is significant and welcome in an environment where the lack of accountability was becoming the norm. We welcome her guilty verdict as a step in the right direction to restoring public trust in the rule of law. Equally, her conviction must serve as a warning to our lying politicians that there will be consequences for their despicable conduct.
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