On 23rd July 2020 I wrote an unknowingly prophetic piece on the Cancer of Corruption in Health. In that I used examples of corruption in the health sector that I had encountered in the past. In doing so, I had no idea that the cancer that I had described and which I concluded could be excised by good and honest leadership had progressed to such an advanced stage in South African society.
At a time of crisis, with the country threatened on many fronts by an unprecedented pandemic, one would have assumed that even the most hardened criminal would have hesitated to steal the scarce resources needed to save the lives of fellow South Africans and protect health workers who were putting their lives on the line for the sake of others. But this was not the case and only time will tell how many people could have needlessly lost their lives as a result. It is unconscionable that a health worker should be deprived of essential quality personal protective equipment or a critically ill patient be deprived of life-saving therapies by opportunistic thieves.
While the Zondo Commission into State Capture grinds on day after day, month after month, revealing more and more astounding details of malfeasance at the highest levels of government and South African society, seemingly in many case without regret, it seems that fear of exposure was not a deterrent for those involved in the latest scandals.
Previously, which I still believe, I referred to the fact that leadership and governance are key to an efficient, functioning health care system and that there is a clear relationship between weak leadership and governance, and corruption. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic came a relaxation of normal procurement procedures to deal with the health emergency. This provided an opportunity for those with criminal intent to circumvent the checks and balances normally in place. More important in preventing corruption, I argued previously, was the example set from the highest level in society that honesty and integrity are characteristics that every individual in this country should value. What appears to have happened was that some of those who should have set that example and whose actions should have been above reproach took the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic to enrich themselves, their familes and acquaintances.
It seems to me that my view that honesty and integrity alone would triumph is indeed an unrealisable Quixotic dream. If this is the case the alternative is a draconian punitive response as a deterrent. There must be a severe consequence swiftly and directly related to criminal and fraudulent activity. It cannot take years, if ever, for those consequences to become a reality. As someone recently reflected, it is high time that perpetrators of fraud and corruption are seen clad in the orange of prison garb.
I will continue to tilt, as did Don Quixote, at the windmills of fraud and corruption at every opportunity open to me. There is no more stark example of the consequences of endemic fraud and corruption than the recent tragic events in Beirut Lebanon. I remain firm in my belief that the values of the majority of people of this country are honesty and integrity. But for the cancer of corruption to be excised from the South Africa and elsewhere, it is time for the citizenry of this country and others in Africa to take a stand and demand that that this cancer be removed.
