During the past 25 years, South Africa has witnessed endemic corruption, that has cost our poverty-stricken nation more than one trillion rand. It has enmired and enmeshed our hard won democracy in a solid vice grip that may take another 25 years to untangle.

Greed that defies logic and description has enveloped the land on a monumental scale. We must as a matter of urgency, ruthlessly tackle this contagious scourge before it decimates what's left of our country.

The wealth of both the corruptor and the corruptee is already obscenely vast. Most of this vile loot has already left the country and may have found its way into safe havens across the world.

These predators are in fact perpetual motion machines designed to endlessly extract wealth and leave the masses destitute.

These money gobbling pirates cloak themselves in garments of respectability, are insatiable in their quest to annex a nations wealth. Exposing them would mean revealing the origins of the sources of their ill-gotten fortune and the grotesque scale on which they contrive to amass them with active collaboration of those in the corridors of power. Why have we remained silent and inactive over the two decades?

The stolen money was enough to feed every child, heal every sick person, house the homeless and educate every child. The greed will result in an uprising that will devour the nation.

Farouk Araie

Benoni