There is no shame in creating your own Utopia in an abnormal SA

Too often in South Africa, the only “justice” we see is when the corrupt die.

We are living in a twilight zone in South Africa’s local government arena.
Almost every municipality in the country, bar a few, is in some form of crisis, and the growing list of casualties, both political and real-life, is playing out exactly as many predicted more than a decade ago.

From Msunduzi in KwaZulu-Natal to Ditsobotla in the North West, we are witnessing the near-total collapse of municipalities.

Writing about this week after week can feel like an exercise in repetition - regurgitating the same tropes over and over. Sometimes, I even feel guilty for merely talking about these issues without seeing real change.

Just this month, South Africa’s leading investigative journalism organisation, amaBhungane, put it plainly:

“It’s unlikely that you’ll open any newspaper or scroll through a news website these days without seeing an article about corruption in a government tender process.

Just this week, we read about how the CEO of a state-owned entity (SOE) tried to quash a story by promising a journalist that they could facilitate tenders for him and his contacts, and about how an ANC leader in KwaZulu-Natal feels that criticisms about his wives benefitting from government tenders are an attempt to target him politically.

Corruption has become endemic to South African public life, and procurement—the process by which government contracts for goods and services—is the abused cash cow that feeds political and personal greed.

We all know it.”

AmaBhungane has been reporting on procurement-related corruption since its inception. When I worked with them in 2012, corruption was already a primary story driver. Back then it was the Limpopo textbook scandal—an obviously corrupt tender process—followed by the exposé on “Zumaville,” a ludicrous plan to build a city in the middle of Nkandla with a massive price tag, and of course the ongoing saga of the looting around former President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead.

In every one of those cases, there has been no real justice.

If you are a jaded journalist - or simply a jaded citizen - you’ll understand the difficulty in remaining positive or solution-driven in this climate.

Why has no one faced justice in the aftermath of #GuptaGate? Why has no one been punished for the collapse of Eskom, Transnet, SAA, and so many other state entities? The list is endless.

Too often in South Africa, the only “justice” we see is when the corrupt die. Former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni was one of the most corrupt figures I knew of. Despite overwhelming evidence, she was never prosecuted or held accountable by the State or the ANC. The only real blow to her came through civil litigation by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, which had her declared a delinquent director for life. Her eventual death from cancer was the final end to her influence. If she were still alive, I have no doubt she’d still be knee-deep in graft.

We once mourned our leaders when they died. Now we breathe a sigh of relief. But if you’ve been on this earth long enough, you know there’s always a queue of new thieves waiting to step in.

The fight never stops, and some days I think: to hell with it - move into an estate, make money, live happily.

This is the choice many of us face: keep fighting a system that produces criminals at an unfathomable rate, or withdraw, build wealth, and live in a bubble. I could do the latter easily - move to a lifestyle estate, surf three or four times a week, spend time with my loved ones. It’s tempting.

And maybe I will. The disillusionment I - and many others - feel is real. Perhaps it’s a form of PTSD. I’ve spent more than half my life on the frontline, reporting on corruption and rot, and little has changed. In fact, it’s worse. If I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, how can I convince others to?

Maybe the first step is to acknowledge that we may be in different cabins, but we’re all on the same ship. And unlike the Titanic, ours doesn’t have to sink. But to extend the metaphor: a ship with no captain is no better than a sinking one.

That’s why leadership matters. Come 2026, we will have a chance to vote for our local government leaders - and we must vote out the crooks who currently occupy public office.

Before you do that, though, ask yourself the real question: Do I still care?
If yes, then do what you can - no matter how small - to make this country better.
If no, then stay in your bubble, and God willing, the illusion you’ve created will last until your end.

I’ve come to accept that there’s no shame in either choice. We’re all just ordinary people living in an abnormal world, trying to make sense of it all.