Mercury: It’s about the Poor, not Politicians

It’s about the Poor, not Politicians

by Imraan Buccus

As courageous journalism brings more and more information into the public domain about how some under our last municipal regime behaved like “Chicago gangsters”, it’s becoming increasingly clear just how bad things were. The Manase report seems to show the extent to which our municipal coffers were plundered, but it’s the investigations into the power that people like the late John Mchunu wielded over the municipality that explains how it actually happened.

One symptom of what went so wrong in Durban has been the political assassinations that have so shamed the city. Who would have thought that what the premier bravely referred to as the confluence of politics, business, and crime would have led us to this point in the democratic era? If we stay on the current path we’ll end up more like Colombia than the society envisaged in our constitution.