SOWETAN SAYS | State must punish lawbreakers

South Africans by nature love a spectacle. 

We love seeing the state exercise its power and, with a dose of public humiliation, hold accountable those accused of wrongdoing. 

So-called Hollywood-style arrests and public raids on institutions invoke a level of contentment that the rule of law is active and responsive to abuses of power in our society. 

Granted, justice must be done and must be seen to be done. 

But in our desperation to see a well-functioning and just society, we must resist the temptation to celebrate public displays of power but neglect our responsibility to demand structural change and accountability for those who break the rules. 

The Babel restaurant in Menlyn is the latest example of an establishment at which public raids by authorities are held, after allegations of exploitation of workers and the employment of undocumented immigrants. 

After a social media exposé of the restaurant’s alleged ill-treatment of workers, labour department officials pounced and arrested three people – two of them workers alleged to be in SA illegally and an owner of the restaurant accused of hiring undocumented immigrants. 

The arrests are welcome.

But like many others before, they are only a part of the exercise of accountability. 

The much deeper questions we must grapple with are the economic conditions that give rise to such exploitation and the loopholes that allow for employers, in particular those in the services industry, to flout laws, and to benefit from cheap and exploitive labour. 

The prevalence of this practice, despite continuous protestations from officials, speaks volumes about the absence of accountability by some in the business community and their entitlement to conduct their trade in a manner that continues to undermine the laws of the Republic. 

But they do this because they can – and herein lies the problem. 

The state is simply unable to exercise its authority and implement its laws effectively enough to be a deterrent to this practice. 

Public raids on certain establishments and other allegedly exploitive spaces, only when they are exposed, serve a limited purpose. 

The real work is about strengthening governance systems to ensure they give meaning to the application of the law against all those who undermine it. 

SowetanLIVE