The story of Eastern Cape health MEC Sindiswa Gomba, who allegedly enrolled for an honours degree in public administration at Fort Hare without having an undergraduate degree, has been presented as something of a scandal. But I must confess that, like Gomba, I’m not sure it qualifies.

That’s because scandals in the ANC’s SA tend to feature two things that Gomba doesn’t bring to this party — impressive villainy combined with profoundly limited criminal vision, which usually produces a result that is simultaneously epic and pitifully banal...