When Kgalema Motlanthe replaced Thabo Mbeki as president of South Africa in September 2008, while Jacob Zuma waited to assume office, a cartoon by Zapiro in this paper depicted Motlanthe driving the official presidential vehicle, with Zuma in the passenger seat next to him.
Motlanthe is saying that he has never driven one of those before. Zuma reminds him that the car is not his. From the back seat, like a spoilt, restless, whining child, Julius Malema — then leader of the ANC Youth League — asks: “Are we there yet?”
Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan sang: “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there …” How far are we from darkness, not merely electricity-wise? Last month, we seemed to be pretty close.
When Christmas Day was fully electrified and President Cyril Ramaphosa survived, the heavens were praised. Better the “devil” we know, than presumably infinitely more dangerous crooks in power. Thank you for small mercies.
When load-shedding interrupted a speech by the president, he apologised — a welcome gesture by a politician — and called it “our biggest problem”. Really? It is surely annoying and harms the economy but makes little difference to the many South Africans who have lived for ages without electricity, clean water, proper housing, nutritious food, sufficient medical services and functioning schools.
I am not qualified to rank our multitude of interrelated problems — poverty, inequality, lack of services, gender-based violence and more — from “most” to “less” and “least” important. But corruption sometimes results from, and often causes, these ills. It is destroying South Africa’s soul.
Legally, corruption is essentially bribery — the giving or acceptance of any gratification in order to influence the receiver to conduct themselves, or itself, in a way that amounts to the unlawful or irregular exercise of any duty. Often it also has a wider meaning, including fraud, theft and other forms of unlawful and dishonest conduct — perhaps including hiding foreign currency from the Reserve Bank.
Corruption on the level of state capture dominates the news but just as dangerous — and more difficult to root out — is the corruption that seeps into almost every aspect of our lives, on numerous levels, by everyone against everyone, like Thomas Hobbes’s bellum omnium contra omnes (war by everyone against everyone). When corruption becomes the norm, part of the economy, legal system, culture and lifestyle of a society, the end is nigh.
This is fuelled from above, not only by political leaders but those who embody success with lifestyles oozing wealth and conspicuous consumption. If the powerful can get away with it, why should the “herd” (as Friedrich Nietzsche called the unthinking masses) stay on the right track?
Publicity about crime often enhances crime. The debt-ridden husband, with a mistress wanting rewards and a wife with a life insurance policy, hires help to fake a break-in and slit her throat more easily than he would have done if he did not regularly hear how dockets get lost, police do little and the prosecuting authority is incapacitated.
Sometimes the truth glares at even the most unenthusiastic investigating officer, when the murderers have entered through a conveniently open window and forgotten to steal a cell phone next to the victim’s bed. Not every case is that simple, though.
It takes a real nuisance of a conscience to resist taxpayer apathy and stronger urges to provide accurate information in a tax return in the face of government misspending, knowing that many get away with fraud about income and expenses.
The collapse or inefficiency of systems not only enhances dishonest conduct but sometimes necessitates it. Could our many township versions of the boy in Elvis Presley’s iconic song In the Ghetto, who “starts to roam the streets at night and … learns how to steal and learns how to fight”, be blamed for not honouring his parents’ wishes to find a modest job and study part-time by candlelight, amid massive unemployment, when his models of success with new Nikes, noisy cars, Johnnie Walker Blue and multiple friends make a good living out of crime?
On the other end of the social spectrum, a highly respected and ethical lawyer tells me of her unconditional willingness to bribe whoever may be able to assist in the endless struggle against red tape, contradictory information and inefficiency, while simply trying to obtain permission to build a retirement home.
When a pay station at an airport long-term parking space recently seemed to reject the credit card of a motorist who tried to pay a considerable but duly owed amount, an official was quickly on hand. Well after midnight, she offered to “help” the tired traveller by accepting whatever cash was revealed by a thorough inspection of his wallet.
On the evening of Valentine’s Day, a metro police officer stopped me and found that the number plates of my vehicle did not match the licence disc. I asked him to give me a ticket, quickly because I was in a hurry to take my wife to dinner and give her a small gift I had just bought.
When I gave him my card and offered to fetch the correct number plates from my house three blocks away, he stressed the seriousness of my crime and requested that, as a judge, I must advise him how to get us out of the dilemma. And, what about his Valentine’s Day, he then asked. I laughingly told him that we could have lunch one day and drove away.
Another metro cop stopped me because one wheel of my car had touched the yellow line on the road. To solve our problem, he wanted me to hand over the few chickens and three white doves in the car — “one for me, one for my wife, one for my daughter”.
No token of goodwill is too small to be demanded. In the Deeds Office, attorneys’ clerks have to give money for a Coke to the thirsty official behind the counter, waiting with his finger lifted before pressing the button to print an urgently needed document.
Rumours abound of police officers informing drivers who never drink at all that they have tested positive for alcohol.
Some people fear encountering an honest officer. After a few drinks, the readily available cash in their pocket may then not safeguard them against a night in prison.
Is the court system clean? As far as I know, Carl Niehaus’s repeated allegations of corruption in the judiciary lack proof. A small number of judges have resigned or withdrawn nominations for positions in higher courts because of perceived conflicts of interest. About magistrates, I am not sure.
Recently, women in their early sixties, with limited English ability, were arrested for working without the required permits in a pre-Christmas raid on Thai massage facilities. They were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. On the way from the court to the prison, the police allegedly demanded R100 from each … for their transport! Others in the same situation were quickly released, because of the apparent exchange of cash negotiated by a lawyer and even a court interpreter.
During a live radio interview, a listener asked me how much a judge must be paid for a good judgment.
Perceptions of corruption are as dangerous as the real thing. Kenya had to clean up paralysing judicial corruption. A Kenyan colleague narrated that when a judge entered the court, an attorney whispered to his client: “With this judge, we can only win by paying him.” The startled client reluctantly agreed and handed money to the attorney.
When the decision went against them, the client asked: “What happened?” The attorney replied: “The other side must have paid him more.”
However, the judge was honest and received no bribe. The money lined the attorney’s pocket. This is just the law he practises.
Allow me a reference to the short story titled Drie Kaalkoppe Eet Tesame (Three Bald Heads Eat Together) by Jan Rabie, who changed the course of Afrikaans literature in the late 1950s. It has been described as an allegory of gluttony and greed.
Three bald men sit around a table in a restaurant. A polite waiter serves them lots of food.
Without talking or looking up, they eat hastily and continuously. Grease drips off their fat chins. The ongoing dishes become human body parts, like soft-boiled baby heads.
Then they frantically start to devour themselves. They tear out and swallow their intestines through their wide gaping mouths. Eventually, only three empty skulls remain, shining in the dim light.
The waiter calmly cleans up the table and tosses the skulls into the rubbish bin.
Corruption may cause South Africa’s national pride and the rule of law to end up in the same bin.
Johann van der Westhuizen, who assisted in drafting South Africa’s Constitution, is a retired justice of the constitutional court.
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