SOUTH Africa faces a “grave evil” across all areas of society, and another voice has citizens to join moves to defeat it.
UKZN Emeritus Professor Martin Prozesky, a specialist in applied ethics, spoke to the Independent on Saturday after the announcement last week that an Anti-Corruption Week would be held next month by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and 26 other organisations.
The announcement came as whistle-blower Athol Williams left the country, fearing reprisals for having blown the whistle on an investigation into the SA Revenue Service. His book, Deep Collusion: Bain and the Capture of South Africa, was launched this month.
Williams left after Gauteng Department of Health whistle-blower Babita Deokaran was murdered.
Prozesky said the larger group of people in society sat between those who are “so ethically mature that they probably never knowingly do wrong” and “those with little or no conscience, like the corrupt”.
“Widespread corruption, above all when the corrupt seem to get away with their misdeeds through lack of accountability, has a way of drawing the ethically less strong members of the middle group away from ethics,” he said.
“That does very great harm to the good of society.
“It is nothing less than a slow but certain poisoning not just of those who swallow the bait dangled before them by the corrupt, but also of the structures of society ‒ business, politics and government above all.”
Prozesky warned that if people did not defeat this scourge, “it will wreck the future for us all”.
He said ethical living and working was the only way to ensure lasting well-being for any society.
“That means that individuals and the structures of society, like governments, political parties, education, sport and business, must act honestly, fairly, responsibly and with concern for the good of others.
“Therefore, selfishness and dishonesty are grave evils that undermine and can destroy the lasting well-being we all want.
Prozesky said corruption, in all its forms, was a very obvious manifestation of selfishness and dishonesty.
“It puts personal gain above the common good and lies above truth. It is the domain of the greedy, the ruthless, the liars and the cheats.”
The Independent on Saturday