There is a group of people whose days as public office bearers are numbered.
Among them are politicians, public servants and any number of officials who populate state-owned enterprises.
The nagging question is who will employ these people? What will they do, next?
It is easy to speculate about the ones who may be shaken out of the system, at least out of the executive, after the 2019 election.
There are at least two ways to look at this (very likely) shake-out.
One is that the cabinet that will be created after the next election will, necessarily, have new faces.
The other, contingent on the ANC winning the poll, is that there are politicians and officials who are terribly compromised.
That is putting it mildly. These are people who you do not want within touching distance of a state, and the executive, desperate to rebuild trust, encourage social cohesion and bring some stability to the country. Let’s be honest.
Short of a mass purge, the shake-out will not get rid of all the people bearing the marks of corruption, avarice, greed, incompetence and slothfulness.
In many ways, those who have benefited from the post-apartheid dividend have done so because of fealty to the ruling party.
We should be clear. There is a core of exceptional people in the state, and in its entities and agencies.
I have been fortunate to work with some of the best minds, and the most honourable people in the public and private sector – who are members of the ruling party.
There are, nonetheless, figures like Malusi Gigaba, Fikile Mbalula or Bathabile Dlamini, and any number of party loyalists deployed to positions of power and influence, who remain shady.
Consider the likes of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, Brian Molefe, Tom Moyane or Jimmy Manyi. Who will employ them? What will they do next? Gigaba, Dlamini and Mbalula are still members of the ANC’s national executive committee and given the way the ruling party selects its lists and slates, they may re-emerge as members of parliament.
The salary of an MP depends on seniority, but ranges between R1m and R2m a year.
For people like Gigaba, that would be a massive drop in salary and benefits.
If it is true, as was reported at the weekend, that Gigaba pleaded with the president not to fire him, we can speculate that the minister is desperate to hold onto his job.
The minister shows signs of a lavish lifestyle.
That Dlamini and Mbalula will be kept people says a lot about the ANC.
Either the party is scared to lose them, out of fear that they might show up in the ranks of the EFF, or the party takes care of its own and will redeploy them.
Whatever may happen next, we can be sure that people like Gigaba, Mbalula and Dlamini will stay around to ensure we spend the rest of lives in a state of embarrassment.
We elect them, directly or indirectly, and we probably deserve them.
What about characters like Motsoeneng (formerly of the SABC), Molefe (formerly of Eskom), Moyane (formerly of Sars) or Manyi (formerly of government and the New Age newspaper created by the Gupta family)?
What will they do next? Who will employ them? They were so sure of their future that, unlike the smooth-talking and slippery ones who subtly and insidiously used official time and money to set themselves up for when their terms came to an end, they threw caution to the wind.
They are, now, heading for the unemployment lines.
The list of people who enabled state capture and the hollowing out of the state is long.
It is growing by the week. The list is not made up of only ANC members.
Long before the EFF poisoned the wells of SA politics, when Julius Malema was still in the ANC, he was implicated in the process of bringing Limpopo province to its knees.
Malema was shrewd, though.
When he was kicked out of the ANC and no longer had access to the feeding trough, he simply started a new political party.
While I will not make any accusations of wrongdoing, political analyst Prince Mashele faces the wrath of the EFF for suggesting the party was created to perpetuate looting.
More specifically, Mashele wrote: “The most important knowledge the EFF propagandists targeted for complete erasure is Malema's history of corruption.
“The masses were made to forget that this is the same man who looted public money with his friend, Cassel Mathale, until the finances of Limpopo province literally collapsed.”
What, then, are the options for the likes of Motsoeneng, Molefe, Moyane or Manyi? Who will employ them? What will they do next? Imagine, for a moment, any one of these good people (or Malema, for that matter) having to complete forms for a job application. It’s difficult.