Scandal behind the scandal

From sofa cash to Cabinet cronies, corruption in South Africa isn't just about individuals - it's a system of enablers, protectors and profiteers.

- William Saunderson-Meyer

The stench of corruption is rank and clings to whatever it touches. Nothing, as President Cyril Ramaphosa is discovering, can rid his party of the smell.

How apt that in the very week he hauled in nearly 5 000 aspirant ANC candidates in next year's municipal elections and castigated them over the party's reputation for corruption and incompetence, the trial of the three accused in the 2020 burglary on his Phala Phala ranch finally got underway in a Limpopo court.

The bizarre and initially covered-up theft of $580 000 (about R8 million at the time) cash hidden in a sofa, continues to cast a long shadow over Ramaphosa's probity.

As if on cue, two investigative journalists published a searing indictment of EFF leader Julius Malema, which also reminds us how the corruption that exploded under former president Jacob Zuma never ended. Ramaphosa's administration remains elbows-deep in the reeking entrails of that era.