We live in a society where corruption has become a culture, a normalised act, a sickness of our being.
The differentiation between “petty” and “grand” corruption has led us to believe that grand corruption, such as State Capture, affects the country more because of its economic implications and the erosion of public trust in our leadership and state institutions. Over the years, we have travelled to many different communities across the country to conduct fieldwork. Our trips gave us first-hand experience of how corruption impinges on human dignity and prevents various groups of people from accessing their basic human rights.
In Gauteng, we were exposed to an ailing health system that cannot serve large parts of the population with dignity and provide adequate treatment. Patients sleep on floors, medicines are stolen and sold to sponsor drug epidemics in communities, doctors moonlight during public working hours, foreign nationals are denied access to health facilities and people have to bribe just to get treatment.
In these dreary streets, corruption is not discreet. It screams in your face and does not masquerade as a silent or victimless crime. It walks around in official blue uniforms, it stares at you as you look down the barrel of a contraband firearm, and it proudly puts a price tag on our law. These are the stories, the everyday experiences, and the lived realities of many people in South Africa, who are dying of thirst. Our Constitution, through its robust and progressive Bill of Rights, promises fountains of living water to a people devastated by a painful history – but corruption is destroying the dream and has created generational webs of inequality, poverty and injustice.