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In yesterday’s reply to the State of the Nation debate, President Zuma said that “most of the corruption you read about in the media is exposed as a result of the work of government and its agencies”.

These are the words of a President who is completely disconnected from reality.

South Africa’s major corruption scandals have not been broken by government, but by the media, and the opposition. These include:

The arms deal, to which former President Thabo Mbeki, President Zuma and then Minister of Defence Joe Modise were all linked;
Travelgate, in which a number of high ranking ANC MPs, such as former deputy police minister Maggie Sotyu, misused parliamentary travel vouchers;
Oilgate, which traced the involvement of an ANC-linked company in diverting money from a state contract to the coffers of the ANC;
the SAPS lease scandal, in which former Minister of Public Works Gwen-Mahlangu Nkabinde and suspended National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele were involved; and
the Chancellor House/Hitachi scandal, which saw the ANC’s front company landing lucrative contracts with the state.

Nowhere is the government’s attitude towards exposing corruption more clear than in its determination to see the Protection of Information Bill pushed through Parliament in its current form.

Should this law be passed, journalists and whistle-blowers who report on what the government deems secret will face up to 25 years in prison. It will be illegal to expose corruption and serious crime and the poorest of the poor will continue to lose out as government resources are redirected away from service delivery.

Government is not the last line of defence against corruption. The media and the opposition are.

This is why the Democratic Alliance continues to fight against the Secrecy Bill as it currently stands, and will fight for a strengthened public interest override to ensure that ordinary citizens and the media retain the right to know.