---
title: "South Africans need to wake up to the many crippling costs of corruption"
description: "Until ordinary citizens stop dismissing corruption as a peripheral issue, and stop voting for corrupt leaders, they won’t get a safe and stable South Africa country in their lifetimes."
type: "OpinionNewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Opinionistas"
author: "William Gumede"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/william-gumede/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-09-06-south-africans-need-to-wake-up-to-the-many-crippling-costs-of-corruption/"
published: "2026-09-06T22:28:16"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1838
---

# South Africans need to wake up to the many crippling costs of corruption

> Until ordinary citizens stop dismissing corruption as a peripheral issue, and stop voting for corrupt leaders, they won’t get a safe and stable South Africa country in their lifetimes.

By William Gumede · Published 7 September 2026, 00:28 SAST

## Content

Many ordinary South Africans appear to believe, wrongly, there are no costs to corruption and seem unable to grasp that corruption is at the root of public service delivery failures – poor public education outcomes, crippling health services, power blackouts, water outages, high crime, the high cost of living and record unemployment.

Many also continue to elect obviously corrupt politicians, unable to connect corrupt elected officials to ineffective government, harmful policies and society moral breakdown. Many appear to embrace corrupt politicians, if they propose the “right” policies, blame the “right” enemies, and if these politicians share the same colour, ethnic group, ideology or historical political past.

Corruption undermines the credibility of supposedly good policies, laws and democratic institutions. When ruling leaders, parties and elites are corrupt, the policies they introduce – whether they are supposedly “progressive” or promote “radical transformation” or “social justice” – are not seen credible, by citizens, communities, civil society, business and markets, and will therefore face fierce opposition, and become unimplementable.

“Transformation” policies such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), land restitution and expropriation of land for public interest purposes have in many cases been captured to benefit ANC-connected politicians, trade unionists and state-owned entity executives, tenderpreneurs and BEE businesses – undermining the credibility, constitutionality and public acceptance of these policies.

Corruption stunts economic growth, undermines the credibility of democracy and subverts the stability of society because it fractures the social fabric – the relationships, shared values, traditions and institutions that hold it together.

Well-functioning societies have rules, laws and social norms regulating everyday social, business and public life, individual public and private relations with others, behaviours, conduct and speech.

These rules – formal and informal – are critical to the stability and harmony of society, to cooperation with and trust in the government, as well as to trust between citizens, communities and groups. They ensure social harmony, and without them the social order is broken down by the most violent, most greedy and most resourced.

Corruption fundamentally breaks these operating rules. What is often poorly understood is that without these stabilising rules, sustainable economic development, poverty eradication and employment are not possible, no matter how good a government’s intentions, policies and visions are.

Corruption undermines South Africa’s nation-building project, since the breakdown of the state through corruption leads previously disadvantaged citizens to blame the past, while previously advantaged whites view the state as failing because blacks are supposedly corrupt.

The countries that have fostered sustainable common nationhood, after a divided past, did so on the basis of genuinely tackling corruption.

The countries that have built quality, sustainable and inclusive democracies have made fighting corruption a central pillar of their democracy building process.

A precondition for a stable, prosperous and democratic society is high levels of trust, between the different communities, and between citizens and the state and democratic, public and market institutions. High levels of corruption break down such societal trust, making it impossible to pursue sustainable economic growth, sustainable democracy and societal stability.

The US political scientist Nathaniel Swigger writes that trust “is a prospective judgement about how much individuals can rely on others to act according to established rules and norms”.

Trust encapsulates “the belief that institutions and processes are operating in good faith… the belief that leaders are acting in what they think are the best interests of society and… the belief that our fellow citizens are likely to follow the rules and laws of society”. Trust allows citizens to “sacrifice temporary individual interests in favour of collective societal interests”. Corruption undermines societal trust.

If countries experience high levels of corruption, ordinary citizens see no point in sacrificing their individual interests for the collective national or economic interests. This is one of the reasons, in corrupt African and developing countries, ordinary citizens, groups and companies focus on guarding their own interests, because they see the ruling political leaders, parties, elites and regimes only enriching themselves.

Those that have transitioned from poor to industrial nations have all made fighting corruption central planks of their economic growth, industrial development and high-state-performance strategies.

In South Africa’s dominant public discourse on how to lift economic growth, accelerate industrialisation, tackle poverty or create employment, bringing down corruption as a central prerequisite rarely features. Tackling corruption is in most cases seen as a secondary consideration, rather than the central pillar to achieve critical development goals.

Some ordinary previously disadvantaged South Africans appear to put their elected representatives on a pedestal, somehow giving them the “right” to be corrupt, on the basis that they are “leaders”. It does appear that corruption is seen as part of the “spoils” of power; that elected politicians can be corrupt as part of the benefits of being elected.

The ANC has a strategy called the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), which argues that the party must take over not only the state, but also the private sector, public institutions and civil society, organised churches, sports and cultural organisations, and private businesses. It also has a policy of cadre deployment whereby it deploys loyal members to all state, non-state, civil society and business organisations, to them along ANC national interests and objectives.

Because the ANC has been dominant not only as South Africa’s governing party, but also in black society, through the NDR and cadre deployment, its party-political culture has also come to dominate many political, institutional, economic and society sectors.

The state institutions that are supposed to combat corruption, such as the police and Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, have been plunged into crisis, having been infested with corruption following the ANC’s appointment of suspect individuals who lack competence or have come through the party’s cadre deployment strategy.

The ANC has also pushed its cadres, based on connectedness to the party, rather than competence, to non-state organisations, such as sports and cultural organisations and public institutions, such as higher education bodies, schools and professional bodies. These cadres have, in many instances, brought the ANC’s corrupt political culture into many of these supposedly non-political, independent organisations.

The culture of corruption has infused spiritual institutions, such as churches, which are regularly in the news because pastors have exploited vulnerable parishioners, stolen tithes and used their churches to launder money. Many of South Africa’s traditional institutions and monarchs are corrupt, self-aggrandising and self-serving. The leadership of South Africa’s sports organisations, such as athletics, hockey and football, are frequently disbanded because of corruption.

Even traditionally trusted professions such as medical doctors, legal and audit firms such as KPMG, and management consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company, have been accused of corruption in the past. South Africa’s private sector, especially when doing business with the government, has in many cases imbibed the corrupt practices prevalent in the government.

The ANC has increasingly deployed its cadres, former ministers or state-owned entity executives to the executives and boards of many private companies doing business with the state, securing government tenders and mining licences.

Private companies doing business with the ANC often appoint party-approved cadres to their boards and executives to secure or hold on to government contracts.

Many of these cadres often also bring the party’s corrupt culture to these private companies, bringing faction infighting, corrupt practices and a lack of moral values to these firms. It is not surprising that many of these companies have been embroiled in public corporate leadership battles, just like the ANC’s party political battles.

Having ANC cadres on their boards often gives these companies permission not to adhere to social responsibility obligations and employee rights, because they are protected by these cadres, and because they reckon that employing them equates to “social responsibility” or “black economic empowerment”.

Many private companies that may not have any ANC cadre connections often also take part in corruption, because the ANC, the state and private competitors with ANC links do so.

The problem is that corruption is often not seen as wrong, legally or morally, by many ordinary South Africans. Many low-level public servants expect a bribe or inducements from citizens to get them to do their jobs. Ordinary citizens, in return, accept that they will have to pay bribes to public servants to get fast public services.

Some individuals from previously disadvantaged communities appear to believe that corruption is part of the spoils of being in power – and if they themselves were in power, they would also take part in corruption. The ANC’s strategies of cadre deployment and BEE have made many party members fabulously rich overnight. A culture has developed whereby cadres, through bling lifestyles, show off their new wealth gained often by a stroke of a pen.

Being able to afford a bling lifestyle is increasingly seen by previously disadvantaged individuals as having made it. Many ordinary ANC supporters have come to admire displays of wealth by their leaders, reinforcing the culture of bling in the party.

ANC cadres are often prepared to support corrupt, undemocratic and lack-of-care decisions by party leaders, in return for securing or retaining deployments and BEE deals, and thus holding on to bling lifestyles.

Many non-politicians have turned to crime to secure and show off their bling lifestyles. How these lifestyles are achieved, whether through corruption or crime, is increasingly not seen as important for many. In many townships, those who have achieved overnight riches show them off at entertainment venues, funerals or other social gatherings.

Some previously disadvantaged South Africans, sadly, defend the corruption of their “own”, which increases societal tolerance of corruption. Some say, wrongly, that apartheid and colonial systems were corrupt, and therefore corruption among post-liberation South African and African leaders should be excused.

Many previously disadvantaged individuals say some leaders in leading Western countries are also corrupt, therefore criticism of African and South African post-liberation and postcolonial governments is unfair.

Some previously advantaged South Africans and Western governments and businesses say Africans are inherently corrupt because of their blackness, while others from previously disadvantaged communities say that white South Africans, Western governments and people who criticise post-liberation African parties and leaders are “racists”.

Corruption is such a destructive force that it is a gross human rights violation. It is instructive that many post-World War 2 high-growth, fast-industrialising countries, such as China, have executed corrupt government officials. Taiwan and South Korea impose life imprisonment for corruption.

Since Liberia became the first African country to achieve independence, in 1847, African nations have been tolerant of corruption, so it is not surprising that they are among the world’s poorest, least-industrialised and most unstable nations.

Unless ordinary South Africans and Africans understand that tackling corruption is central to securing high levels of economic growth, sustainable democracies and peaceful societies, rather than dismissing it as a peripheral issue, and stop voting for, supporting and tolerating corrupt leaders, a prosperous, safe and stable South Africa and Africa will never materialise in their lifetimes. **DM**

*This is an extract from the report on corruption in South Africa launched at the University of Johannesburg’s Combating Corruption Summit from 2 to 4 September 2026.*

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