50 Word Microfiction

Flaunting Your Ill-Gotten Gains Makes Me So Mad

Thrifty Words Challenge #9: Greed

You corrupt cadres of the ANC siphoning off truckloads of money meant for the poor, then having the balls to display your fancy cars and mansions in Sandton on social media while your brothers and sisters next door in Alexandra queue for food and housing —

We’re coming to get you.

Backstory

The endemic corruption and greed in our society — whether at local or national level, in private or public enterprises — has left a bitter taste in South Africa.

During what we call the lost decade, then president Jacob Zuma deployed acolytes in all branches of government, including state-owned entities (SOE’s), the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Under the tutelage of the Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, the ruling party crippled good governance at every level. The pursuit of business or politics for nothing more than personal gain, at the expense of the poor, gave birth to State Capture.

Progress is slow.

The Judicial Commission of Enquiry into Allegations of State Capture (we call it the Zondo Commission, named after the Deputy Chief Justice running the show) has received an extension to March 2021 to complete its report, but all testimony must be in by end December.

There is so much evidence of malfeasance, we’ll never uncover everything. But arrests over the past two months give us hope that the long arm of the law is fit for purpose and has the muscle to prosecute without interference.

(President Ramaphosa appointed Advocate Shamila Batohi National Director of Public Prosecutions in February 2019. She had a monumental job on her hands clearing out the rotten apples in the NPA, but her efforts are bearing fresh fruit!)

The architect of this despicable affair, ex-president Zuma, is an expert in Stalingrad tactics. He has delayed his criminal trial for corruption in the Thales arms deal for over a decade. Now he plays the same game with the commission — from laughable sick notes, to far-fetched stories and conspiracy theories.

The Commission has issued a summons for him to appear 16–20 November, with the choice to answer the damaging allegations brought by 34 witnesses via video link. This time he has no wriggle room — or does he?

And the Gupta brothers are living it up in Dubai while expanding into property development in Uzbekistan. South African law does not allow prosecution in absentia — so they get away free. The United States sanctioned them in 2018 under the Magnitsky Act — at least they can’t do business or rinse their money through banks over there.

Whistle-blowers here receive no compensation for their revelations and have not found other employment. No company wants the publicity of a high-profile person working for them. They’re on their own.

Apart from them, the people who have suffered most over the years are the millions still waiting for the better future promised to them in 1994.

One day, justice will prevail.

Until then, I’ll rail against this amorality.

And let David Scott sing his latest parody, which shows that, despite the shit, we haven’t lost our sense of humor. (R500-billion is about $30-billion.)

Thanks for being here.