The end of Apartheid in South Africa brought a surge of hope for a brighter future. But the ANC, the party that liberated the Black majority from oppression, has transformed the country into a swamp of corruption, mismanagement and despair. Some are trying to turn things around.
Every time parliamentarian Siviwe Gwarube walks to work, the anger comes surging back. Every time she lifts her gaze to the Corinthian capitals on top of the white, neoclassical pillars that line the magnificent façade of South Africa’s parliament building in the heart of Cape Town.
For the fiscal year 2021-2022, the auditor-general found that 219 of the country’s 257 municipalities did not have clean audits. In countless cities and municipalities, the infrastructure, administration, education system, health system, sewage and garbage collection are all subpar or completely dysfunctional. In many places, not even the trains are running, while some regions are forced to go for days without running water.
In February, the Financial Action Task Force , the most important international institution for combatting illegal money flows, placed South Africa on its"gray list," putting it in the company of failed states like South Sudan and Haiti. But the moral decay, says Kleinschmidt, began far earlier. Even during the resistance period, he says, not all of those involved were quite as selfless as they would later seek to appear. Aid money was embezzled, there was intrigue, resistance members suspected of spying were liquidated and, Kleinschmidt says, some criminal transgressions were glorified as acts of heroism.
Letta knows full well that he's harming the community. He also knows that people are furious with men like him and that he has contributed to a situation in which they must take expensive minibuses to work every morning."But what am I supposed to do?" The 45-year-old lives in a squatter camp, the kind of slum made of wooden huts and corrugated metal shelters that can be found across the country. He last held a job, in construction, in 2008.
Letta scrambles over a stoplight pole that was cut down on the street above, stripped of its insides and then thrown onto the tracks below. He walks along the railroad bed in search of metal that he can then sell for a few rand to a scrap metal dealer. But there isn’t much left. Windows, doors, water faucets, tiles, roof panels, signs, signal poles, switches, overhead power cables, isolators, elevators: It has all been gutted.
The total damages suffered by South African companies as a result of transportation difficulties amounted to the equivalent of 23 billion euros in 2022, estimate researchers at by Stellenbosch University. But such private initiatives were constantly blocked. Since 2018, Gqeberha has had 10 different mayors – and Martina Biene can count every single one of them on her fingers.The deputy of the most recent city custodian in this bleak series hurries to City Hall the next day. Mkuhseli Jack – who everybody just calls Khusta – is only here to briefly greet his successor. After just eight months in office, he was forced out when the fragile coalition of which his party was a member collapsed.
William Stevens seems composed as he stands in front of the brick police station in Manenberg. Every evening when the 53-year-old heads out for the night shift, he says goodbye to his family as though it was the last time."Anything can happen here," he says.