The influential South African Council of Churches has warned corruption is turning South Africa into a “mafia state” under a government that intimidates whistleblowers, local media reported on Friday. In unusually frank comments from the council (SACC), its secretary general Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana was cited as saying President Jacob Zuma’s
government had “lost the moral radar.” The criticism puts more pressure on Zuma, who in past weeks has faced calls to resign from within his own ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and the opposition amid a slew of scandals that prompted street protests and credit-rating downgrades. “We have come to recognize that South Africa may just be a few inches from the throes of a mafia state from which there may be no return, a recipe for a failed state,” Mpumlwana was quoted as saying. READ MORE
