紐時賞析／南非總統肅貪計畫 引發質疑聲浪

South Africa Details Plans to Fight Corruption

南非總統肅貪計畫 引發質疑聲浪

South Africa’s president has introduced long-anticipated measures to tackle endemic corruption, subjecting even himself and his Cabinet to closer scrutiny of their personal spending and lifestyles. But some analysts question whether reforms that would help the government regain the trust of a fed-up public will ever be carried out.

南非總統推出各界期待已久的措施，以解決普遍存在的貪腐問題，連他本人跟他的內閣個人支出與生活方式都要接受更仔細的審查。這項改革意在協助政府重新取得受夠一切的大眾信任，但一些分析人士質疑是否能夠落實。

President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking on national television Sunday evening, said his government would, among other things, establish a permanent anti-corruption unit in the national prosecutor’s office, create transparency in the granting of public contracts and increase protections for whistleblowers.

南非總統拉瑪佛沙周日晚間在國家電視台發表談話時表示，他的政府還將在國家檢察官辦公室設立一個常設的反貪腐部門，在批准公共合約方面創造透明度，並加強對舉報人的保護。

“As a country,” he said, “we are emerging from a dark and difficult period.”

他說：「作為一個國家，我們正在走出一個黑暗和困難的時期。」

But Ramaphosa deferred much of the work to root out corruption to Parliament and other government entities. He also did not say how he would tackle some of the most controversial issues closest to home, including what to do about senior officials within his government who have been accused of corruption.

但拉瑪佛沙將根除貪腐的大部分工作交給國會和其他政府機構。他也沒說自己將如何處置一些最具爭議的問題，包括如何處理他政府內遭指控貪腐的高官。

“It’s so unserious, it’s almost a joke,” William Gumede, a professor of public management at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said of Ramaphosa’s proposals. If he wanted to show that he was serious about dealing with corruption in his orbit, Gumede added, Ramaphosa should have suspended the ministers accused of corruption.

約翰尼斯堡金山大學公共管理學教授古梅德談到拉瑪佛沙的提議時說，「太不認真了，簡直是個笑話」，並稱拉瑪佛沙若想展現自己認真看待他身邊貪腐問題，應該將遭指控貪腐的部長停職。

Ramaphosa’s proposals came in response to hundreds of recommendations by a judicial commission that spent three years hearing evidence from more than 300 witnesses about how officials had gutted public enterprises to enrich themselves and their friends. The commission, led by South Africa’s chief justice, Raymond Zondo, focused mostly on the nine years that Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, led the country.

拉瑪佛沙的提議，是回應一個司法委員會提出的數百項建議。該委員會花了三年聽取300多名證人證詞，他們講述官員如何破壞公共企業來圖利自己跟朋友。委員會由南非首席大法官桑多領導，主要聚焦在拉瑪佛沙前任朱瑪領導南非的9年。

But the current president’s reform efforts also come at a particularly fraught time, with Ramaphosa facing his own corruption scandal.

但這位現任總統的改革行動，是在一個特別令人憂心的時刻進行，因拉瑪佛沙自己也面臨貪腐醜聞。

As the country confronts a breakdown in public life, with frequent blackouts because of an overwhelmed electricity grid and increasing water outages, several investigations are underway into whether the president had sought to cover up the theft of potentially millions of dollars in cash from a game farm he owns.

隨著電網超過負載導致頻繁停電及愈來愈常停水，該國公眾生活面臨崩潰，幾項關於總統的調查也正進行中，以釐清他是否試圖掩蓋從他擁有的狩獵農場竊取數百萬美元現金。

During a news conference last week, Zuma said Ramaphosa, his staunch foe, was corrupt, while another former president, Thabo Mbeki, questioned Ramaphosa’s future as a leader amid the farm theft inquiry.

朱瑪在上周的記者會上說他的死對頭拉瑪佛沙貪腐，另一位前總統姆貝基在農場盜竊案調查中，質疑拉瑪佛沙作為領導人的前途。

文／John Eligon　譯／陳韋廷

說文解字看新聞

【張佑生】

本文談的是貪腐醜聞纏身的南非總統要肅貪，大概他沒聽過「周處除三害」的故事。Tackle是對待、處理困難的工作或問題，通常是社會問題，例如犯罪或失業率：Successive governments have failed to tackle the question of homelessness.距離「安得廣廈千萬間」的境界還差得遠。

新冠疫情在全球大流行用的是pandemic，影響範圍僅限局部則用endemic：Violent crime is now endemic in parts of Chicago.其實，美國也有「慶記之都」。

Staunch是堅定的、忠實可靠的，只用在名詞前面，a staunch critic/opponent/supporter都是常見的用法。

配稿第一段說川普老友希望在中東做生意時能「編織寬容之網」，指的是伊斯蘭教的嚴刑峻法以及對西方文明的態度一點也不寬容（intolerance），他希望能藉由經商改善雙邊的經貿乃至於其他層面的關係包括政治、文化、信仰，由點線擴散到面，故稱為「織網」。