Esidimeni justice is unlikely

It's the old and tested South African recipe on how to minimise accountability or possibly avoid it completely.

- William Saunderson-Meyer

Cover with loads of bureaucratic manure. Apply plenty of well-intentioned hot air from ombuds, mediators, and arbitrators. Then saturate with platitudes from ANC politicians. Leave to simmer for as long as possible. Lift lid. Voilà!

An unappetising, undigestible mush. Nothing substantial to gnaw on.

It is now eight years since the Life Esidimeni tragedy in which at least 144 psychiatric patients died under cruel circumstances.

This week, after three years of desultory proceedings, Judge Mmonoa Teffo delivered her inquest findings. She ruled that two government officials former Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu and Dr Makgabo Manamela, former head of mental health in Gauteng health - were legally liable for the deaths of at least nine patients.

The inquest finding is by no means the end of a saga that started in 2016. As a cost-saving measure, Gauteng health department had in that year decided to move 1 606 mental patients from Life Esidimeni's private health facilities into "community care