One of the shameful achievements of the ANC in its 25 years of governing South Africa is that it is living up to the political stereotype of what is wrong with post-colonial Africa - unethical and corrupt leaders who exercise power through patronage..
South Africa appears to have morphed into a fully fledged predatory state.
Lobby group Corruption Watch reported last year that more than half of all South Africans think corruption is getting worse.
They also think the government is doing a bad job at tackling corruption.
For corruption, sub-Saharan Africa is in a league of its own. In the 2018 Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International, it appears at the bottom.
Transparency International remarked: “Sub-Saharan Africa’s performance paints a bleak picture of inaction against corruption.”
The ANC once represented a political tradition of opposition to apartheid rooted in altruism.
But the events that have unfolded since it took over running the government in 1994 suggest it has become a corrupt machine.
State corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid agenda.
For example, corruption is often framed around the rhetoric of empowering black people. The reality is that the black elite enrich itself through government tenders.
Former president Jacob Zuma is the “poster boy” for this black kleptocracy. He and his associates, the Gupta family, captured the post-apartheid state with the sole purpose of exercising power to shape policy-making, and to control political institutions to their own advantage.
Dishonest politics has become a defining feature of post-apartheid politics, while the legitimate fight against corruption is being made analogous to racism.
It is a politics that is characterised by lack of ethics, morals, and logic, and has no legitimate place in a democratic society.
Yet it continues to trickle down to other societal institutions. Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula recently described the Passenger Rail Agency of SA as a “broken organisation”, struggling to provide an efficient and committed passenger rail service.
Meanwhile, SAA has been forced into a voluntary business rescue after its working capital dried up and the Treasury refused it another bailout.
The breakdown in social order reveals a dysfunctional political system that rewards sycophants, con artists, thugs, greed and other anti-social attributes.
The development of this patronage network is the product of the ANC’s cadre deployment policy, which values party membership over ability and probity.
The history of democratic South Africa shows that the ANC has failed to learn from the experiences of post-colonial Africa and avoid its pitfalls.
Instead, it has chosen to walk in the footsteps of other corrupt post-colonial African leaders.
Small wonder that its frustrated citizens have turned to the courts to force the government to govern in their interests.
The latest example of this is the Makhanda High Court ruling that the Makana Municipality be dissolved and placed under administration for failing to carry out its constitutional obligations to its citizens.
More such political collisions between the country’s democratic norms and the corrupt political elites are needed to change the current political trajectory of corruption and incompetence. That is the only antidote.