Imagine the Utopia had cadres stolen just a little bit less

Everything comes with instructions. Shaving gel, shampoo, and skin care products often prescribe miniscule quantities, as opposed to the dollops we often apply for no good reason.

Following instructions makes stuff last longer. Assembling and wiring do-it-yourself projects work better when you read the manual, despite most of us ever doing that.

It’s the same for a country.

It has a manual, and if you follow and implement it to the letter, the economy, social cohesion, institutions like the judiciary, and public liabilities like the Road Accident Fund and other state enterprises may just last longer for everyone.

South Africa’s manual, the Constitution, celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary last year and in its first quarter of a century gathered some dust in the archive of good ideas, and was hauled out only when a headline was needed, or in some instances, justification and criticism.

Running a country is not easy, especially when your roots remain firmly settled in Stalinist ideas, but you’re faced with the reality that socialism has never worked, and that the free market has liberated the global economy for centuries, reduced poverty, and upped living standards everywhere.

Yet, insistence by comrades that there’s always a new shape that Marx and Engels can be beaten into is like flogging a dead horse. Not even condoms can claim that one size fits all, and it takes balls to admit that your ideals are flaccid and your organisation dysfunctional.

The ANC-led government is caught between a rock and a hard place, and it has a mammoth struggle ahead of itself if it’s to survive.

The question is, who’s going to lead that charge?

Ageing policies and a sustained tsunami of corruption, selective application of rules, tired slogans for all, and smoke and mirror exercises of virtue do not wash with a new generation of South Africans who finally see past the veneer.

The ANC is winding itself down into irrelevance and, hopefully in some instances, prison. That is, if there is true political will to prosecute people like Ace Magashule and Zweli Mkhize, or for that matter do something about the racketeering, corruption, and money laundering charges against Jacob Zuma.

So far, history shows that Tony Yengeni was one of a few comrades that made it behind bars for taking more than his fair share.

If only the above-mentioned used the manual though.

Reports are aplenty of arrests that have been made. But none of the fraud and corruption listed ever tallied up to the R 1-trillion stolen from the fiscus in five years, which President Ramaphosa admitted to some time back.

If only long-fingered cadres all read the Hitchhiker’s Guide for Ruling Parties and Corruption for Dummies as a side script to the Constitution, we could have had it all. A thriving economy, lower unemployment and perhaps even less poverty.

A simple rule of thumb, the first chapter in both rough guides, could have made all the difference in the potholed path that South Africa now follows. You can eat at the trough if you want to, but by Jove! Steal a little less at a time and leave something for tomorrow.

After all, that’s what National Party rule should have taught them with the alleged billions stashed in Swiss bank accounts. Yet, schools were built, dams constructed, and we had no load shedding under the Nats.

Steal cleverly and crucify a few scapegoats to appropriately hide financial skullduggery. Pietie du Plessis got handcuffed for R 300 million, Hennie van der Walt for R 800 000, and Leon de Beer, former MP for Hillbrow, was jailed for 70 counts of fraud. Schabir Shaik and a host of others are freemen.

Instead of nailing them and jailing them, the South African government launched an anti-corruption strategy comprising 146 pages of structural planning.

Also Read: Too much talk and no action: South Africa stagnates on corruption index

In its foreword, three years ago, President Ramaphosa gave us great sloganeering and vitriol.

He said: “We champion a new spirit of business, government, labour and civil society leadership that upholds professionalism, ethics and anti-corruption practices at all times. We will enforce good governance principles in all spheres and ensure consequences for corrupt individuals and organisations.

“Our citizens will always act with integrity and will not be hindered to act against corrupt individuals through whistleblowing and other measures that promote transparency and accountability. State and business procurement systems will be run with high levels of integrity, efficiency and effectiveness. State law enforcement and anti-corruption bodies will be capacitated, integrated and their independence and authority respected by all.

“We will build resilient institutions and go out of our way to protect vulnerable sectors and individuals in society who are at a high risk of experiencing corrupt practices and unethical conduct.”

So where is all this, Mr. President?

Foreign investors only fall for slide presentations and promises so many times, and so too do voters.

At this stage of our socio-economic disintegration all I see are qualified audits of state institutions, more poverty and fewer jobs. I see state owned companies in a mess.

Couldn’t cadres just have stolen a little bit less?