Daily Dispatch
Civil society must act
NO-ONE can deny corruption is eating the vital organs of our country. It is a cancer destroying the heart of our nation.
If nothing is done, it will be the proverbial rope that keeps dragging South Africa backwards.
It was, for this reason, comforting to see South Africans yesterday so visibly awake to the reality that the fight against corruption cannot be left to those in power.
The past 21 years bears testimony to our leaders’ lack political will to deal with this affliction. Society must never again sit expecting them to lead the fight against corruption.
Such a change in attitudes was exactly what the two marches yesterday – in Pretoria and in Cape Town – demonstrated. South Africans of all persuasions were taking back their power.
Among those putting their weight behind marches – held under the banner “United Against Corruption – were civil society and political groups, including the Right2Know campaign, the Economic Freedom Fighters, the United Democratic Movement and newly-formed Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers of South Africa (Demawusa).
Curiously there was no representation from the ANC nor its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions.
In Cape Town thousands of marchers of all ages, races and cultures and representing different sectors of society, including faith-based groups and non-governmental organizations, were addressed by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba. He urged South Africans to stop talking about corruption and start acting.
“How long are we going to allow our morally corrupt political and business leaders to intimidate us into silence?” he asked.
In Pretoria the march was led by former Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi. In what appeared to be a response to Makgoba, Vavi announced what sounded like a strategy for rolling national action. Government had 14 days to respond to the demands on the memorandum. If a response was not forthcoming by October 14, thousands of protesters would be back on the streets, marching again, he said. This would be followed by a national strike in November.
It is no small irony that the march took place in the same week that corruption reared its ugly head again. The Japanese conglomerate Hitachi had to pay a $19-million settlement fee after being charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for paying a bribe to an ANC front company, Chancellor House.
It is stinking deals like these that make corruption such an albatross around the necks of South Africans. Billions of rands are lost through corruption each year. Those who marched yesterday have undoubtedly brought in the much needed heavy artillery.