Corruption: A big reason SA is failing to reconcile

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation released its annual South African Reconciliation Barometer Survey yesterday and more than 80% of 2,400 respondents said the country was still far from reaching its reconciliation goals.

Although reconciliation was a complex term “with different definitions and meanings associated with the concept” it allowed for respondents to decide from a list of options, such as “forgiveness”, “peace” “moving on”, “truth” and “respect” with reconciliation.

The survey found that with this understanding, 84.4% of the sample, representing the country’s diverse demographics, agreed reconciliation would be impossible if corruption continued.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga agreed, saying “corruption worsens race relations”.

Government failed through corruption, which led to unemployment. It then led to identity politics and “it does not take much to reactivate old wounds”.

Corruption ate at social cohesion and social order and affected racial relations, which brought mistrust, he said.

“We still have a long way to go.”

Another analyst, Andre Duvenage, said he had no doubt there would be no reconciliation without the eradication of corruption.

There needed to be an understanding about the context of reconciliation and South Africa was at the worst point in history, far away from the country former president Nelson Mandela envisioned, Duvenage said.

“If you just look at the money involved in state capture, it went to R100 billion – and it could even be more if we consider the corruption on different levels.

“We need a more functional and ethical society to grow, otherwise we will end up with the rise of the haves and the have-nots, which will see the black elite getting richer and the poor poorer.”

• 74% of the respondents said reconciliation would not be achieved “as long as political parties exploit social divisions for political gains – thus highlighting the need for transparent, responsible and accountable [political] leadership”.
• 73.3% said “it is impossible as long as those disadvantaged by apartheid remain poor”;
• 72.8% said “it is impossible while race categories were used to measure transformation”;
• 72% said “it is impossible as long as gender-based violence continues in our society”.

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