Widespread corruption, some of it allegedly involving senior figures in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the government, is eroding trust between the state and the citizens, and is putting South Africa’s post-pandemic recovery at risk.
This warning is contained in a strongly worded statement from the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
It said allegations that South Africa’s Covid-19 relief effort had been ‘turned into business opportunities for the politically connected’ amounted to ‘a massive setback for the country’s integrity and post-pandemic economic landscape’.
‘At the very time we should be demonstrating integrity, we’re blowing it,’ the Foundation said.
It warned that ‘the window of opportunity is closing to demonstrate the courage and the muscle to act decisively and hold the culprits in its ranks accountable, regardless of who they are’, adding: ‘If it closes we must brace ourselves for turbulence. For, in democracies, when the people are ready, governments change.’
The statement follows days of intensifying attention on the scale of corruption at a time when the burdens on millions of South Africans, already impoverished by government mismanagement of the economy, have been greatly enhanced by the devastating lockdown.
The Foundation warned: ‘With each allegation the trust deficit between the State, on the one hand, and citizens and companies who may be enticed to grow the economy, on the other, widens. If investors, local and foreign, can’t be enticed to the post-pandemic reconstruction table the task of reducing systemic inequality while re-building the economy becomes considerably more challenging.’
In a sharp criticism of the ANC’s rule, the statement said: ‘Much has been spoken and written over the past 20 years about things that have gone wrong – but little has been done to set them right. There is a culture of impunity when it comes to corruption. Impunity flourishes in the absence of enforcement. None of the big fish and few little ones ever get caught. The fact that our coronavirus defences have been looted is not a big surprise.’
The Foundation noted that, a few years ago, ‘many South Africans had high hopes for the country’s success. They really wanted the new President to do well, to see the economy restored and Eskom properly managed, and those who had been enriching themselves at the expense of the people go to jail. They really wanted to see South Africa return to the high road of morality and human decency.
‘Instead, South Africa seems stuck in a generational rut. Corrupt leaders have been tolerated largely out of strong emotional bonds to the organisation and its group of exceptional leaders who ultimately prevailed in the long struggle against apartheid. Instead of acting against the corrupt, over the years, systems and individuals have been compromised and the State and ruling party have become increasingly factionalised.
‘The need for new, younger voices and leaders, with the energy and insight to reconstruct a less unequal society from the ashes of the pandemic – less unencumbered by the past than their parents, and with more clarity on the principles of accountability and sustainability – is becoming glaringly obvious.’
Beyond the government, what was ‘really needed’ was ‘a whole of society approach’. Stopping corruption was ‘a whole of society responsibility’, and it was ‘incumbent on all of us to drag the corrupt from the dark corners they hide in, into the light’.
South Africans needed to ‘build a culture of outrage and intolerance’.
Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 6 670 to a cumulative total of 559 858 (with 411 147 recoveries). Deaths rose by 198 to 10 408.
The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (192 767), followed by the Western Cape (99 959), KwaZulu-Natal (98 068), and the Eastern Cape (82 401).
In other virus-related news
- Reuters reported that more than 19.72 million people had been reported to be infected globally and 726 246 had died;
- Johns Hopkins University said the United States had registered over five million cases and more than 162 400 deaths, both totals by far the highest of any country in the world;
- AFP reported that New Zealand yesterday marked 100 days with no recorded cases of the coronavirus in the community. There were still 23 active cases in the country, all detected at the border when entering the country and now being held in managed isolation facilities; and
- AFP reported that Brazil surpassed 100 000 deaths on Saturday, and three million cases of infection. With 100 477 fatalities and 3 012 412 confirmed cases, the South American nation of 212 million people is the second hardest-hit country in the global pandemic, after the United States. Experts estimate the total number of infections could be up to six times higher due to insufficient testing. AFP said Brazil had seen 478 deaths per million people, a figure roughly equivalent to that of the United States (487), but lower than that of Spain (609) or Italy (583).