IT’S IN OUR HANDS TO TACKLE OTHER PANDEMIC – ABUSE OF TAXPAYER MONEY

DURING his virtual imbizo this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa once again spoke about a second pandemic gripping South Africa.

It’s commendable of the president to keep highlighting this other scourge – gender-based violence.

But there’s another pandemic – the rampant corruption, fraud, mismanagement and wasteful and fruitless expenditure of government funds.

Out of 257 municipalities, only 20, or 8%, achieved clean audits for 2018/19 and billions more were stolen and wasted.

While Ramaphosa failed to highlight the issue, during a week when Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu released yet another shocking municipal audit report, he did indirectly offer a cure. We can use the cure he suggested for coronavirus to stem the older pandemic, by changing our behaviour and taking matters into our own hands.

Just as stemming the spread of the virus is in our hands, we, as citizens, can also take control and stop the daylight robbery and theft out of government coffers.

How exactly, I don’t know. But we’ve got to stop this somehow.

The figures speak for themselves, whichever year’s report you read. They’re downright shocking. But what’s more shocking is how you and I have behaved afterwards, doing nothing about it. Year after year.

We have been turning the other cheek. The crooks know they can keep bamboozling us and embezzling our fast-dwindling funds, with no consequences. And then make us pay more and more for fewer and fewer services.

It’s a crying shame that you and I allow this.