Real victory would involve McKinsey coming clean about its full role in the State Capture project and everyone implicated being successfully prosecuted. Anything less would be like praising a dog for barking.

Has the bar for a victory been lowered in South Africa regarding accountability and comeuppance for the key architects of State Capture corruption?

This question immediately came to my mind after consulting giant McKinsey entered into a $122.8-million "settlement" with the US Department of Justice and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for being part of a bribery scheme to win contracts at Eskom and Transnet.

Many news and think pieces have described the McKinsey settlement as a "victory". I'm afraid the bar for a victory is low. However, if we were to accept it as a "victory", maybe it should be considered a pyrrhic victory -- one that comes after so much damage and loss has occurred that it is no longer worth celebrating.

After all, the $122.8-million that McKinsey has to pay (equivalent to R2.2-billion at the time of writing, but the firm will only pay R1.1-billion to South Africa's state) pales in comparison to the billions of rands that were fleeced from Eskom and Transnet, the key sites of State Capture.

With the help of McKinsey and others, R57-billion was milked from Eskom and Transnet through corrupt means from 2011 to 2016. The $122.8-million is also a slap...