Prosecuting thieves like this will send a strong message that you can't loot the state like an overturned truck on the highway.
South Africans have an amazing ability to see specks in the their neighbours’ eyes while ignoring tree trunks in their own.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in our attitudes towards crime and corruption.
Most of us, across race and social divides, agree that politicians are thieves and crooks and that their looting should be stopped.
That is weapons-grade hypocrisy, especially from the more than 40 000 families – yes, that is correct, 40 000 families – who have stolen taxpayer money by claiming tertiary education funding for their children to which they were not entitled.
That crime – let’s call it what it is – is doubly reprehensible because not only has money been taken from the fiscus, but for every student who claimed money they didn’t qualify for, there was, potentially, a properly disadvantaged youngster whose parents could genuinely not afford university fees.
That’s why it is comforting to hear that parents who were party to this blatant theft from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme could find themselves prosecuted.
The beneficiaries, however, will only be required to pay back the money.
Prosecuting thieves like this will send a strong message that you can’t loot the state like an overturned truck on the highway.
