More than a week after the Seriti commission of enquiry into the arms deal was released, celebrations are still carrying on in cities and towns across South Africa. The commission found there was not a single iota of evidence that any politicians were bribed.
Shouting out above the piercing blasts of vuvuzelas on Cape Town's Parade on Sunday, celebrant Zizi Serote animatedly gushed: 'The rainbow nation had lost its mojo but now we have it back again! Remember Bafana Bafana winning the African Nations Cup in 1996; remember the Boks winning the Rugby World cup in 1995 and 2007; remember how we came together for the Football World Cup in 2010? We thought those memories were consigned to the dustheap of corruption and vice. This commission has once and for all proven the naysayers wrong.'
With the vuvuzela so much in evidence again around the country, a committee of the Western Province Rugby Football Union has been appointed to reconsider the ban against bringing musical instruments into the ground; a ban that had been aimed at the traditional South African horn, which made the 2010 World Cup so unique.
Transparency International, which publishes the annual World Corruption Perception index, has announced an unprecedented, immediate upgrade of South Africa from position 61, which it held jointly with Italy, Lesotho, Montenegro and Senegal, to joint 58th along with Greece and Romania. A spokesman said, 'Normally we only adjust the ranking on an annual basis but this momentous report caps nearly five years of intensive hearings and we have no hesitation in acknowledging the example it has set for countries all over the planet.'
Andrew Feinstein and Terry Crawford-Browne who, among others, have long campaigned for in-depth investigations into the arms deals both expressed deep relief at Seriti's findings. 'Now we can carry on our lives without this pall hanging over the nation', one of them said.
In Simonstown an SA Navy spokesmen expressed the feelings of the entire town by announcing, 'No longer do we in the Far South (formerly known as the Deep South) need to look out at the smart ships and submarines in our harbour (once thought to have been intimately linked with corruption of top government leaders) and feel that pang of guilt that we always knew deep down was unjustified.'
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