If you reckon corruption in South Africa began with Zuma or even with apartheid, its time to catch a wake-up call. Rogues Gallery tells the story of some of the biggest skelms to grace our (un)fair shores, showing that dodgy dealings have been a national pastime for as long as South African history has been written down.
The action starts with the machinations of three colonial rotten Willem Adriaan van der Stel and the twaddling British duo, Sir George Yonge and Lord Charles Somerset. Added to this is Cecil John Rhodess unparalleled success in poisoning the land with theft, fraud, and war, and Oom Paul Krugers corrupt and compromised Volksraads (official and unofficial). Readers are then treated to apartheids finest feats in from the Broederbonds perfect ten in state capture to the Department of Informations peddling of fake news and the apartheid states manufacture of no, not illegal cigarettes Class A drugs! And lets not forget the hotbed of corruption that was the independent homelands. Add to this a few murders, plenty of nepotism and a state president who started out as a Nazi spy, and the gallery of rogues is complete.
On the flipside, every chapter also features at least one brave whistle-blower the true heroes of this book. Irreverent, entertaining, and impeccably researched, Rogues Gallery busts the myth that the Zuptas were the first to capture the South African state, showing that corruption has always been around and that the tricks politicians play havent changed a lot.
Do we NOT learn from history or DO we learn from history REALLY WELL? This is from early 1800s...
"Almost every single department under this Government is in a state of total incompetence to carry on its business. In the Court of Appeal, [he] decides in civil cases, without any assessor. Our Audit Office is a perfect farce, and does more harm than good, as it gives a semblance of sanction to what is really never...investigated...The Office of...the Port is as bad. In the Sequestrator's Office, the arrears are so great and the business in such confusion, that the whole community [is] up in arms against it. A number of other offices, not of any consequence excepting as swallowing up a great portion of the revenue, are held by...[his] [favourites]. And to wind up the whole of this melancholy concern, the [parliament], which is one of the most important branches of...Administration, is in such a state of absolute nonentity that it has become the laughing stock of the place, and the Government money entrusted to it is squandered away without authority or control...We are perfect bankrupts, and it is needless to conceal it, as we have not enough money to pay our own salaries...[T]he Commission of Enquiry will touch upon all these points...[but] we shall all be ruined before their report can be received and acted upon." ~ Sir Richard Plasket in a letter to the Brittish Colonial Office on Lord Charles Somerset's Government of the Cape Colony (1814-1825), as quoted from Rogues Gallery, An Irreverent History of Corruption in South Africa, from the VOC to the ANC ~ Matthew Blackman and Nick Dall
