Corruption spreading like a cancer in SA

SITTING amid a group of high-powered African women in their monthly rendezvous in a London restaurant, owned by a South African, I experienced an element of cultural comfort that resonated well with my immigrant roots.

But I observed them more as marginalised “outsiders” than “insiders”. They were articulate, with strong English accents, self-confident and professionally positioned in corporate positions. It seemed as though the global recession had not touched them at all. They would never want to settle in Africa and they would visit for only for cultural reasons. Britain was home.

Those born in SA were unequivocally scathing in their comments on crime and corruption. “Although I miss not having help from family and domestic labour, I feel safe in this country,” says a mother of two who holds a middle management position at a national bank. Inside SA, the view is not too different. South Africans battle with the scourge of crime and corruption in their daily lives. “So what?” says a leading ANC stalwart. “There is so much corruption in India and there is crime everywhere else in the world,” says another.

Is this a worthy rationalisation for the continual abuse of power?

A thermometer reading of the state of our nation would surely produce a raging temperature. When moral degeneration sets in, it spreads like a cancer.

It is rapidly crossing boundaries of race, gender and generations, and in a strange, unexpected way it is binding citizens into a vibrant opposition.

Even die-hard political protagonists have been silenced into submission, making it hard to defend the ANC government in its present form.

Their unspoken acquiescence confirms a common plight: to put it colloquially, our government is messing up big time.

Outspoken human rights advocate Rhoda Kadalie, in her column in Die Burger recently, says: “I am frequently asked why I do not consider going into politics. My stock response is that I have seen far too many of my friends ruined by politics. Perfectly nice people prior to 1994 have become arrogant, pompous, self-serving and narcissistic. Politicians across the spectrum, except for a few, are a horrible lot.”

Take MP Yolanda Botha. It was reported recently that she had lied under oath that she did not have vested interests in a company that received a R50 million contract from the Northern Cape Department of Social Development. In return her house was refurbished at a cost of R1.2m.

Despite this, she was allowed to retain her position as chairwoman of the National Assembly portfolio committee on Social Development, for which she is paid an additional R180 000 to her existing generous salary of R800 000. Botha is just one example of a corrupted politician.

When the press takes the government to task it is not doing so on a whim of disloyalty, racism, bias, prejudice or white liberalism. It is merely holding a light to all the corrupt practices of a disloyal government.

Helen Suzman once retorted to a Nationalist MP who accused her of being disloyal thus: “It is not me who is disloyal, it is you who is bringing our country into disrepute on account of your heinous laws.”

When history records our deeds it will be precisely on this score alone that presidents and their “merry men” will be assessed.

Devi Rajab is a psychologist and author of several books, the most recent being Women: South Africans of Indian Origin (Jacana, 2011).