Our country is rotten to the core with corruption
WE ARE a nation of thieves. We would even put Ali Baba and his 40 thieves to shame. There isn’t anything we don’t steal.
Corruption and looting of state funds and resources are so common that they have become part of life in the public service.
What’s more, there is a perception in the public service that if you are a state employee, you must be corrupt and steal or you are not one of the gang. Like a plague of locusts sweeping across the country, they devour everything in their path. No government department, parastatal, local council or public institution is left untouched. None of them can lift their head up high and shout to the nation: “Look, I am clean!” They are all damn filthy and stinking.
I know of principals who used to steal in the pre-ANC days but it was on such a minuscule scale that it was often overlooked as petty thieving. Now, with one of the most corrupt governments in the world, the floodgates are open, what must be happening at schools and hospitals? I dread to think of it.
Look at Eskom, once the engine room of our economy. Load shedding at an unprecedented level is ruining our economy and leaving the public and business exasperated.
Before, we would hear that the power generation plants couldn’t cope with the demand and they tripped. Then we heard that some power stations had to be shut to carry out repairs and maintenance. Now we hear that the Tutuka Power Station couldn’t be repaired because R1.3 billion worth of the maintenance and repair equipment had been stolen by Eskom employees and contractors, leaving all of us in the dark for four hours a day.
The Guptas have fled with the loot and the Zondo Commission has subsequently named and exposed all the government officials implicated in state capture.
We thought that would be the end of the looting spree in the country. But even under President Cyril Ramaphosa, there’s no end in sight and widespread looting continues unabated. The reason? None of the big boys have yet been manacled and dragged to court to face the wrath of the nation.
So brazen and arrogant have they become that they could celebrate while the rest of us were under strict lockdown. Parliament has unearthed that our government officials had been partying during lockdown. When I was watching the Number 10 Downing Street lockdown parties saga unfold in England, I thought how responsible our government ministers were. How wrong I was! Quietly, like rats in a pantry they were also having a ball of a time while we all stayed locked up in our homes.
And the cheek of it all they used our money – R1.4bn – to have a good time while the poor were starving. And what would happen to them? Would they face criminal prosecution or would they be fired? Nothing whatsoever. They are the privileged lot, above the law. They may even get a promotion. We live in a rotten state.
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