South Africa’s fight against corruption becomes a mockery when big international companies at the centre of milking the state-owned entities (SOEs) are let off the hook with meagre fines.

Complex as these crimes are, the public expects and demands to see those implicated in crippling the country’s SOEs, including global firms, answering to charges against them.

It is all well and good that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has recovered some of the more than R227 billion that was lost due to corruption, fraud and bribery at Eskom, South African Airways and Transnet in the past five years.

Soon-to-retire Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has recently disclosed a R500m agreement between Eskom and Systems Applications Products (SAP) over a R1.1bn claim by the power utility.

In another matter involving Eskom and Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), the claim amount was R1.56bn and the SIU concluded a settlement agreement in terms of which ABB repaid the amount.

From these cases and others, what is often missing are the words prosecution and/or conviction.

Considering the scourge of this crime in South Africa, the small gains become meaningless when the directors of these companies get away with just repaying the ill-gotten money.

It should then come as no surprise that South Africa scored 41 on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) earlier this year, making it one of 23 countries reaching their lowest-ever score.

If anything, these cases demonstrate the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa has been fighting corruption with kid gloves.

It also gives credence to the perception that tackling corruption has been politicised to target those outside Ramaphosa’s faction in cases where local individuals are appearing in court.

Taxpayers coughed up nearly R300bn in bailouts for four struggling state-owned enterprises falling under Gordhan, with the government only receiving R1 million in dividends from just one of the SOEs since May 2019.

The numbers read like a horror movie script for a country that is confronted with alarming unemployment figures and is struggling to attract investment.

The public has correctly bemoaned the lack of will to act on corruption.

Cape Times