THENEWSOUTHAFRICA
malanga province, political notables were endemically corrupt; in June
1999, the premier, Ndaweni Mahlangu, said that it was "politically cor-
rect" for politicians to lie. A KwaZulu/Natal
department paid four mil-
lion rand to ghost workers, and in another department a single official
stole one million rand. White officials were responsible for some of these
excesses, but as political scientist Tom Lodge explained, most transgres-
sions were due to the absorption into the burgeoning political class of the
new black elite, comprising "cadres and governors ... with recent experi-
ence of extreme poverty."80 Political scientists Heribert Adam, Frederik
van Zyl Slabbert, and Kogila Moodley were scathing in their criticism of
members of the new black political and business elite: "The state is per-
ceived as a source of enrichment ....
The extraordinary gap between elite
remuneration and bottom income erodes cohesion and solidarity in favor
of everyone for himself and herself by all means available ....
Compara-
tive extreme inequality remains South Africa's ticking time bomb."81 In
1998, the government tried to cope with this problem by appointing Judge
William Heath to head a Special Investigating Unit, which recovered,