There are unlikely to be many tears shed for Tony Yengeni when he gets his comeuppance in the next month. For he is surely one of the most despicable people ever to have entered our public life and the sooner he is removed from our sight, the easier it will be to hold down our breakfast.

The sight of him arriving at court in a luscious, pale yellow suit, having just climbed out of a large, dark red Mercedes-Benz, beaming at everyone all the while, seems to provide for our post-apartheid society the very image of “fat cat”.

It is not an encouraging vision. What is even less encouraging is the way he appears to have gotten away with the worst of his deeds. Thanks to a plea bargain, he was found guilty of defrauding parliament, but the more important charges of corruption were dropped. Already some his colleagues are mouthing off about how he was “cleared” of corruption, which is not true. But one can practically place bets that in years to come, as Yengeni resuscitates his political career and his reputation, we will hear again and again how he was “cleared”.

In fact, it appears that the plea bargain was unnecessary - Yengeni’s defence had collapsed, partly because he had run out of funds, and partly, no doubt, because he had no meaningful defence in the first place. So why did the court accept a plea bargain when his conviction was practically assured? In that light, it is hard to convince anyone that South Africa’s justice system is capable of dealing appropriately with well-connected and moneyed criminals.

Until the very last moment, the former chairperson of Parliament’s defence committee lied repeatedly about how he got a huge discount on a very expensive car from a company that was involved in bidding for a slice of the multibillion-rand arms deal. Now that kind of mendacity is spreading like a virus. Even National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala has made excuses for him, saying that since he didn’t get the car free, but paid for it, there is no link to the arms deal. That huge discount (nearly half the cost of a reasonable sized house) doesn’t seem to have figured in her calculations.

The other image of Yengeni that often comes to mind is that of his torture while in detention under the ancien regime. The “black bag” method of torture was demonstrated in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it was horrifying. There is no argument that Yengeni suffered for the struggle against apartheid, and that he did his bit to end that iniquitous system. But he has now betrayed that struggle. South Africa’s liberation struggle was not just about replacing white dominance and self-aggrandising greed with demographically representative greed. It was about legitimate government, about redistributing the resources of the country more equitably and about respect for the people. Maybe he understood that last part.

If the vision of Yengeni arriving at court is the very image of the new South African “fat cat”, the idea of his pleading for a risibly small fine (a mere R1 000) is simply absurd. Yes, he probably has emptied his pockets taking out full-page adverts to protest his innocence, and he has indeed run through a few lawyers trying to defend the undefensible. But he still has those expensive cars that he could sell to defray his costs. Even better, he could sell that yellow suit.

With acknowledgement to Mail and Guardian.