By Daniel Itai, Pretoria, South Africa
Dr. Azar Jammine, a renowned economist, has labelled South Africa as a kleptocratic country due to the high levels of corruption that are emanating from government officials.
“Kleptocracy is not unique to South Africa but many other countries and the primary objective is for government officials to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses.
The R500 billion COVID-19 relief package has already been abused primarily because of unethical leaders.
Greece and Lebanon ended up in a kleptocratic state due to unethical leadership. If you have kleptocracy it will end up affecting the ordinary man in the street who will end up bypassing the laws of the country like not paying tax and this is what happened to Greece which in turn sunk the country’s economy.
In the case of South Africa, people are not being properly empowered and there is now a distortion of the value system and now people just think they need to be in a certain place at the right time to get what they want.
We need strong leadership to remove this mess. Cleaning up has to be from the top but as for now no politician is in orange overalls which leaves a lot to ponder on,” said Dr. Jammine.
Pressure is now mounting on President Cyril Ramaphosa to take pragmatic recourses as municipal elections are now looming.
@danielItai_zw
