Yep.

Unless all of us elevate the conversation in that regard it will only get worse.

I really don’t have an issue with my communications being intercepted if it is in the general pursuit of the well being of South Africa.

I have an issue with the way the intercepted communications have been used and that no one is held to account.

I agree with you on the consequences of leaving any acts of misconduct or criminality unpunished simply because they are small or minor or that the cost of prosecuting anyone who commited them will be huge.
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“A FORMER top official in the Mpumalanga public works department, who incurred an unnecessary expenditure of R200 000 in a land deal, has gone scot-free.

“State lawyers had advised that pursuing the case against the official would ‘not be cost-effective’”.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1081920

But then we have this http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1082229

“You are raising an unpopular yet important point of the economies of scale Maggs”.

My concern is not so much the cost of dealing with the corruption and criminality but that we are being lied to as a matter of course – worse still the adverse impact on the developmental state and the NDR is profound.

Add to that the revelations (in the Zuma and Selebi matters) that phones are being bugged for reasons other than national security and that these agencies are using/releasing information in ways that it hardly could have been intended by the powers that they have.

I hasten to add that I am happy for both Zuma and Selebi that the information has come to light and casts a vastly different picture on their matters than the NPA would have had us believe.

However where, when, how does this stop?

Are we heading back to the days of the Security Branch and BOSS!

I cannot for a moment accept that this is what was intended by our constitution.

While ANY government expenditure needs to be looked at in terms of wastefulness, think about the logical implications of what you are saying.

Let’s just say that all of these little acts of corruption were not followed up. And think about the fact that every official in every municpality and government department knew this. How much more corruption would there be? What would the cos be then?

You are raising an unpopular yet important point of the economies of scale Maggs. Indeed if you look at the millions of tax payers money that is spent on pursuing justice where it is broken by a mere theft of R3000 through prosecution, investigations and commissions of enquiry, it is too much and somehow wasteful in a country where millions of poor people are houseless and often go to bed with empty stomach. It is just unfortunate that in pursuance of justice where documented law is broken, the cost of prosecution, it seems, is not looked at versus the cost in monitory value of the act through which the law was broken but rather versus the cost (as in consequences) of ignoring such an act through which the law was broken.

This statement can be synonymous with that of the former premier of Mpumalanga the province that came to be known as “Mamparalanga” during his reign that `politicians were allowed to lie’.
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It seems that “Lies” Mahlangu was articulating an unspoken national standard.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/editorials/article161236.ece

It seems that the line between bad governance and rotten criminality is becoming very blurred.

I am not a legal practitioner, and I stand under correction regarding the TRC. I was thinking more about the fact that it was created in terms of legislation of general application, and followed formalised criteria.