Narendh Ganesh
OPINION - EVERY so often, humanity is punctuated by acts - or omissions - that sculpt the landscape of our humanism, giving us hope or despair.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taken South Africa into a deeper abyss because of the conduct of so-called “fellow South Africans”, who, in the guise of being patriots, plunder and rape a desperate situation because of greed.
The PPE tenders scandal should not surprise us. South Africa has truly become a nation of rogues.
The ANC, which controls government, has pathetic, incompetent, quite often incapable and downright corrupt men and women in its ranks, who have forgotten what the “Struggle” was about. Commissions of inquiry, which use billions in taxpayers’ monies, have come to nought, only serving to tick bureaucratic boxes.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bold utterances that his government will “clamp down” on corruption is a familiar and antiquated rhetoric that I have no faith in.
What is the purpose of clamping down on corruption when our law enforcement agencies and wheels of justice turn at a snail’s pace in bringing to book those that have stolen from our fiscus?
Our laws and the punishment meted out to miscreants is laughable. To simply excoriate corruption continually is pointless.
It would be better to drive a system of “drastic radical action” whereby swift and draconian laws are promulgated to incarcerate those who steal resources intended for the public, than to keep blaming the past and doing nothing to ensure the present and future are taken care of.
Sit back and complain, and you may well find that one day you have nothing left because the thugs are running rampant. Unless corruption is declared a crime of treason, with the severest of penalties , we will forever be mired in desperation.
Narendh Ganesh Durban North
Daily News