Corruption virus killing SA

SA is not just in a deep “quagmire” of national debt, as finance minister Tito Mboweni explained in his medium-term budget policy statement. The country is heavily infected with a very contagious disease called corruption.

This disease has resulted in billions of rand of public funds being siphoned off what should have been used in service delivery to uplift the lives of the needy. Mboweni now does not have the funds to meet all our social requirements.

This disease stems from a virus that destroys the immune system of public life. It kills off society’s natural protection system called integrity. Once integrity is killed, corruption multiplies.

This is what has happened in SA’s public service. The spread of the disease was speeded up due to senior politicians such as Jacob Zuma pursuing their self-enrichment goals.

Preventative measures such as the ANC’s integrity commission and the moral regeneration movement did not have the power to undertake drastic cleansing operations to ensure a healthy and clean government. The reason is clear corruption was condoned from the top down and spread rapidly.

The best cleansing would be to quarantine those infected by the disease by placing them in isolation prison wards to prevent further spread of the disease. This will discourage others from infecting society.

Ron Legg Waterfall