Take a leaf out of Duvenage’s book
"Civil society has got an opportunity to run politics with a civil society hat."
Wayne Duvenhage at the announcement of the switching off of e-tolls in April 2024. Picture: Twitter @OUTASA
The job Outa (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse) chief executive Wayne Duvenage carries out each day is a blessing and a curse.
It’s a blessing because we need more people like him to keep government and those in power in check, but a curse because we shouldn’t have to call out people who are responsible for malfeasance and double check where every cent of taxpayers’ money is going.
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Corruption is rife in South Africa. You don’t need to page through the Zondo commission report to realise how much trouble we are in. Rampant graft is all around us. Just look at the horrid state of the roads, infrastructure and witness it first hand if you are ever pulled over by a law enforcement agency. Just look at how many high-profile politicians or so-called leaders are in the dock for misusing taxpayers’ funds. It’s a sad state of affairs. And it doesn’t look likely it will change any time soon. For this reason it is exactly why we need more Duvenages and more organisations fighting corruption.
Today in The Citizen print edition we run a story detailing why Duvenage couldn’t sit on the sidelines, doing nothing as he watched widespread looting of the public’s money. The scary thing is that having just started out fighting the implementation of e-tolls on Gauteng highways, his organisation spread their attention to numerous other areas, such was the large-scale theft and dishonesty.
Duvenage said: “We cannot keep up with the sheer volume of cases presented to us every day. There is just so much, billions and billions of rand. It has become a challenge to prioritise which we investigate and expose first.”
With the elections just more than a month away, his words are encouraging… “Civil society has got an opportunity to run politics with a civil society hat. It can all start by getting off your hands and doing something in your community.”
We can’t afford to sit back and watch our country fall apart. We all need to fight back, just like Duvenage has – and still does.
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