Lie detectors for political candidates to weed out graft

Our nation is in a crisis of astronomical proportions. Accountable governance has ceased to exist. Corruption has become an acceptable way of life and has found its way into every section of national existence.

The indicators of corruption — embezzlement, bribery, misappropriation, conversion of public funds for personal use, manipulation of procurement processes, falsification of financial records and awarding of contracts by public officeholders to cronies and personally held companies — are all easily observable in virtually all public offices.

The most perilous thing about rampant and endemic corruption is that it affects other dominions of state institutions, from security to economic growth and infrastructure development.

President Cyril Ramaphosa cannot just lament and fulminate over his frustration on corruption; he must as a matter of urgency crack the whip. Those whose names have been legally tainted must be punished and banished into the political wilderness.

The sensational testimony by Angelo Agrizzi at the commission of inquiry into state capture graphically illustrates that tainted money drives the wheels of our captured democracy.

The stench of corruption is so pungent that it has rendered the political atmosphere in the country toxic.

It is imperative that all candidates in the upcoming general elections are subjected to polygraph tests and that their bank accounts are laid open for inspection by the relevant state authorities. We do not need leaders who belly-crawl and bootlick corrupt businessmen.

Our idealism has lost its flame. The void left is filled with defeatism. The whole edifice of our democracy, its glory and grandeur, stand crippled beyond repair or redemption. Farouk Araie, Johannesburg

Black pain to defend white privilege

The DA billboard is not only distasteful but insensitive, and relives the sorrow in the minds of the victims of Marikana and Life Esidimeni. How do you exploit someone’s misery for electioneering and then rationalise such indecent action?

Clearly, the DA draws no distinction between a report of tragedy in the public interest and exposition of grief in an advertisement for party political gain. That’s cheap politicking in every respect, undermining civil liberties and basic principles of human rights.

This begets contingency litigation with the prospect of more grievances in circumstances under which the DA failed to exercise respect for the dead in terms of African culture.

There’s no doubt the DA assumes liability in connection with the billboard, whose object is to inflict gratuitous pain to the victims of those tragedies.

Even right-wing interest groups like AfriForum would have taken offence to the advertising of the anguish of white families in such a contemptuous manner.

The billboard displays a curious prejudice on the part of DA, under the guise of exposing its view that the “ANC is killing us”, in exaggerated similarity to what the apartheid regime did to black people.

It’s out of line for the DA to stoop so low to fan the glowing embers of colour prejudice into a blaze.

This is consistent with the general policy of the DA, which treats black people as cannon fodder to defend white privilege at every level of society.

If the DA wasn’t fixated with white interests, then the former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille and her acolytes wouldn’t have been proud to quit on account of race being the dividing line within its ranks. Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni

Losing Verlorenvlei

With World Wetlands Day on February 2 in mind, I was recently taken to visit Verlorenvlei, near the Cape West Coast, to see for myself the unfolding tragedy that is taking place in this Ramsar site.

Ramsar is the intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources, and SA is a signatory.

Despite this commitment to conservation and wise use, the area has seen extensive new farming being established — some of it during the worst drought in living memory.

It is no longer only potatoes that are grown there, but vines, vegetables and citrus, all requiring vast quantities of water. Swaths of land are under irrigation, with sprinklers spraying huge amounts of water daily, numerous boreholes having been sunk into the aquifer below.

These finite resources are being plundered, seemingly without restriction or effective monitoring, to the detriment of an entire ecosystem.

With the drop in the water table, large parts of the vlei are now dry and reeds have taken over, thriving on nutrients from fertilisers, growing to 4m or 5m tall and extending into the bank.

The catastrophic effect on the local wildlife can only be guessed at, and where there was previously a pristine haven it is now silent and arid.

We cannot turn back the clock, but with the will to succeed, with co-operation between farmers and locals, conservationists and those who care, with governmental appreciation of the necessity for intervention, it should be possible to undo some of the damage and prevent further harm to this rare ecosystem.

If we don’t act now, it will be too late. How will we answer our children and grandchildren when they ask, “Why is this called a vlei when there’s no water here?” Carol Beech, Piketberg

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