Corruption is Bad!

Corruption has been the subject of plenty of columns and blogs over the last couple of months. Dinner tables and university campuses have heard the sounds of peoples voices debating the merits of their non-corrupt leader. And yet through all of this they my have even agreed on one thing … corruption is BAD. As long as it is when you are corrupt. Me? Corrupt? Never!

The other indisputable fact is that corruption is here to stay. Anywhere and everywhere in this world. Wherever you have money and power it is a absolute fact that corruption will follow. It is a troika that is as old as humankind. And the size power reflects the size of the corruption.

What separates different societies from one another is their response to corruption. Do we condone it, ignore it and hope that it goes away; while we take advantage to the best of our considerable corrupted talent. Or do we fight it and root it out and limit the damage it does to our society.

In South Africa, so far, it seems that we have taken the first, bad, road. Turning this back is something that can only be driven from the ground up. If we don’t tolerate it ourselves then we won’t tolerate corruption from our leaders. We cannot expect this clean-up process to be driven by those who have the power or money. There is no (very little) incentive for them to call for the end of corruption.