Why are government failures so distinctly imprinted in the public’s memories, while outrage over private sector corruption enjoys a much shorter lifespan?
If you listen carefully to the findings of the first People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime, held at Constitution Hill last month, you will hear a common refrain: The private sector has aided and abetted economic crimes and corruption for at least the past four decades.
Yet the idea that the public sector is at the root of all corruption is a dominant public perception, with some breathing a sigh of relief when there are hints that public services could be privatised, all in the name of corporate efficiency.
Although it must be noted that this is not a uniquely South African mindset, it is equally important to recognise the danger this ideology poses to the development of our young democracy. We must tackle public and private sector corruption with equal vigour.
We see how deeply rooted this belief in private sector honesty and efficiency is when scandals such as Steinhoff or the social grant crisis emerge.
Many South Africans appear to be deeply disturbed, for good reason — corruption hurts vulnerable people the worst. The social grants crisis, for example, would serve as a clear case study of the disastrous results that can arise when government functions are handed to a private entity that does not produce the utopian result expected.
We saw in the aforementioned scandal how a private entity, working closely with corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, is capable of engaging in the very same corrupt activities that so many have come to expect from the public sector.
Why are government failures so distinctly imprinted in the public’s memories, while outrage over private sector corruption enjoys a much shorter lifespan?
