The imminent court appearance of ANC secretary general Ace Magashule on corruption charges risks being misjudged as a significant step in confronting the damage corruption is inflicting on South Africa.
Fraud, looting and malfeasance by politicians and state functionaries are undoubtedly a threat to South Africa's chances of succeeding in becoming a fair, stable and prospering country.
But a far greater threat is the corruptive impact of ANC policymaking, and particularly, the ruling party's drive to undermine property rights.
As long as the ANC remains hellbent on pursuing its policy of expropriation without compensation EWC the fight against corruption itself will be emasculated, and the prospect of attracting the investment, achieving the growth, and creating the jobs on which a brighter future for ordinary people depends, will remain beyond South Africa's reach.
The moral collapse on the part of the ANC is inescapable, so too are the wholly predictable consequences of its policymaking priorities.
The fate of freedom, enterprise and success in South Africa hinges on abandoning the damaging expropriation without compensation EWC policy along with race-based empowerment and other policies which have all been shown to be central to the scourge of corruption in the state under ANC rule.
Property rights underpin human rights in all free societies; eroding them is the first corruptive step towards tyranny and the abuse of citizens. The choice facing the government is plain: it can either have EWC, or corruptionfree governance, but it cannot have both.
Hermann Pretorius, Institute of Race Relations
