Alec Hogg’s letter on corruption to Jacob Zuma

Considering specific corruption cases in isolation may provoke outrage, but it’s a cop-out. It’s a defence mechanism against despair. Because a full litany of the depth of the crisis in South Africa makes depressing reading. Alec Hogg, the editor in chief of Moneyweb, writes such a litany in his open letter to ANC president Jacob Zuma, prompted by the finding in a recent survey that nine of every ten South Africans consider corruption to be a way of life.

The letter is worth reading in its entirety, if only to be reminded of the weight of evidence against individuals involved in public and private corruption in recent years — some of whom remain unmolested by public reproof or legal censure.

I’m doubtful whether it will have much impact. The fact that Hogg feels the need to resort to transparent flattery, and to gloss over Zuma’s own proximity to, tolerance for, or involvement in corruption, suggests that he knows the letter will not find a sympathetic ear. Nonetheless, it is a letter that had to be written, and should be read. Widely. Well done, Alec.