CHRIS ROPER: How to get away with corruption

As a South African living in that awkward, frustrating space where we have political and business corruption exposed on a daily, if not hourly, basis, and yet see very little punishment for those exposed, I was amused at a story I stumbled upon while doing my daily Guardian rage read. Sometimes, the terminally corrupt do get their comeuppance.

One Ashley Guillard, who is a self-described psychic and tarot card reader in the US, read the cards and started posting TikTok videos accusing a University of Idaho history professor, Rebecca Scofield, of orchestrating the 2022 stabbing murders of four students. She claimed to have discovered, via tarot card readings, that Scofield had ordered the killings so as to hide a romantic relationship with one of the victims.

And indeed, the evidence of the tarot cards does seem overwhelming. The Law&Crime website quotes Guillard as saying: “When I go to court and they see the evidence or they see how I connect the dots, then they’ll make a decision as it pertains to whether they want to continue to live in blinders or believe it. If they don’t, I don’t care.”

Unfortunately, it turns out that Scofield had never actually met the victims, and that someone else had pleaded guilty to the murders. So clearly, what constitutes overwhelming evidence to a psychic is not appreciated by the out-of-touch justice systems of the world.

As you might imagine, Scofield sued our psychic detective, who was fairly confident that a jury would believe the cards over actual evidence. “‘REBECCA WAS THE ONE TO INITIATE THE PLAN,’ Guillard stated in a TikTok video. “You sure you want to do this Rebecca SCOFIELD? This isn’t going to end well for you.” In another, she maintained: “Rebecca Scofield is going to prison for the murder of the 4 University of Idaho Students whether you like it or not.”

Sadly for believers in magic, the jury did not like it. They awarded Scofield $2.5m in compensatory damages and $7.5m in punitive damages. According to the Idaho Statesman, Guillard is appealing against this. “Unfortunately, because the verdict doesn’t align with the evidence or facts of the case, I have to appeal. I was hoping for a fair and impartial verdict so that we all could move on.” Ah yes. If only we could all move on. I shiver to think I might be quoting the US department of war’s manchildwarrior Pete Hegseth, but I feel FAFO does apply here.

If only FAFO applied to South African politicians, though. “Why is Ramaphosa repeatedly refusing to clean house?” asked an excellent News24 article by Pierre de Vos, whose full tribal name appears to be “Pierre de Vos Constitutional Law Expert” if the way he is constantly referenced when quoted is any guidance.

De Vos’s opinion piece argues that Ramaphosa is repeatedly and deliberately failing to remove scandal‑plagued or incompetent ministers, even though he has the constitutional power to do so, and that his excuses of having to go through due process, and of being fair on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, are legally baseless.

De Vos also argues that the excuses are really just a political smokescreen hiding the fact that Ramaphosa is prioritising party and coalition interests over effective governance, over accountability, and in contradiction to the ANC’s own renewal narrative/convenient fiction.

Given the huge size of the potential list, my trusty AI buddy would burn a lot of small tortoises if I asked it to get me a full account of South African politicians and businesspeople who have been accused of corruption and malfeasance but are getting away with it. So in the interests of saving the world, I’ll just lift some of De Vos’s examples.

There’s our beloved minister for Russian nuclear, Gwede Mantashe, and his Bosasa security upgrades. As De Vos writes, “it is important to recall that the Zondo commission concluded that Mantashe was not entirely honest with the commission and that ‘there is a reasonable suspicion that Mr Mantashe (as the then secretary-general of the ANC) received the free installations of security upgrades at three of his properties, knowing that the company sought to influence ANC office bearers to do its bidding’”.

Then there’s David Mahlobo, otherwise known as Zuma Spy Guy ATM, also flagged by the Zondo commission as a key figure in abusing the State Security Agency to protect Jacob Zuma and help with Operation State Capture. And also a lover of Russian nuclear power stations, I’m glad to say.

There are many, many highlights from his career, but my favourite is the story about him being linked to rhino poaching. His defence was that he only used to hang out in the rhino poacher’s massage parlour, and there was no actual horn-related activity. He has been rewarded with his current position as deputy minister of water & sanitation.

So I guess he has landed in the poo, but perhaps not in the way South African citizens might have hoped.

Speaking of taking sides, accepting a bribe gift from China should already be grounds for dismissal

The list goes on. Social development minister Sisisi Tolashe, the pivot around which De Vos’s piece circles: an investigation by the Daily Maverick suggests that she falsely told parliament that she accepted two luxury vehicles from Chinese officials as donations for the ANC Women’s League, but actually gave them to her two children. Her punishment? As De Vos puts it, “she is reportedly being hauled before the ANC’s toothless Integrity Committee to ‘account’ for this. Instead of dismissing her forthwith … the president reportedly requested Tolashe ‘for a report’, to accord her ‘an opportunity to relate [her] side of the matter’.” Oh dear. Speaking of taking sides, accepting a bribe gift from China should already be grounds for dismissal.

Why are patently corrupt politicians getting away with it? The FM’s own Justice Malala offered one answer last week, in a column that argued that Panyaza Lesufi’s decision to appoint the EFF’s Nkululeko Dunga as Gauteng finance MEC shows that the ANC is prioritising clinging to power over actual governance. This puts the fox in charge of the henhouse, with the henhouse in this case being “the bank accounts of South Africa’s, and the continent’s, economic powerhouse”, and the fox being a man whose “previous experience includes being MMC for finance in corruption-soaked Ekurhuleni, where he oversaw a R51.2bn budget. Under his stewardship, Ekurhuleni failed to pass a budget twice.”

As Malala put it, “So, what’s really going on here? Well, just say goodbye to service delivery in Gauteng under the ANC. With this appointment, the party is saying loud and clear that it has no interest in accountable government. It’s quite happy to replicate the mess in Ekurhuleni at provincial level.”

De Vos is scathing, in his own restrained way. “The fact that all the ANC ministers [tainted by corruption charges] remain in the cabinet may thus also reflect a tendency within the ANC to place the interests of senior members of the party above the interests of the country. It may also reflect an inexplicable tendency to place the interests of senior party leaders above those of the party as a whole.”

We can only hope that there will be accountability one day. My take is neither as measured as that of De Vos, nor as informed as Malala’s. When corruption is so baked into a political system, it becomes self-perpetuating and starts to seem natural. Think of Shark Tank presenter Kevin O’Leary’s response to CNN when questioned about Trump being found guilty in a civil fraud case.

Trump was found liable for a years‑long scheme to fraudulently inflate his net worth and asset values. O’Leary’s response was that lying and cheating was normal for the industry, and shouldn’t be prosecuted. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he argued that all real estate developers inflate valuations, called the Trump fraud a “victimless crime”, described the New York case as “blatantly unfair”, and warned that investors were asking “who is next?”

That’s how our politicians seem to be treating the “victimless crime” (unless you count actual people dying, of course) of corruption. Everyone is doing it! It’s a team sport. I’m no psychic (who is?), but when it comes to our corrupt politicians, I don’t think we’ll ever get to experience the same schadenfreude gleaned from the story of the US psychic being called on her for-profit lies.