The suspended minister owes us a great Christmas gift as a nation; he needs to step down so that our focus can be on the actual criminals and their aides in police uniforms.

In our own country, we are fortunately still far from the life of military coups. Our armed forces seem to fully appreciate the imperative to keep out of politics and to leave matters of governance to civilian rule.

However, today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union and any romantic feelings we may have towards today’s Moscow are misplaced.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet, supported by South African corporates and civil society, have used the past year of the country’s G20 presidency to push Africa’s economic agenda to the centre.

As we have witnessed it over and over again, that type of divisive politics may deliver votes for the politicians but seldom brings tangible benefits to the poor.

It is too early to tell, perhaps, but future generations would probably say the correct lyrics of the song should have read: “Amandla ase maseleni — the power is with the thieves.”

That time now feels like many decades ago, even though the South African majority has had state power for only three decades.

Yesterday marked the 48th anniversary of Black Wednesday, which, in “the new” SA, has come to be known as National Press Freedom Day.

The Tembisa Hospital corruption scandal has further fuelled public scepticism about the idea of NHI – with some fearing that the system aimed at bringing about universal access will just end up collapsing all hospitals, private and public.

Sometimes corruption thrives because a huge section of a society does not see it as being that serious.