The early release from prison of convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni and the hero's welcome given to him yesterday suggest a flippant attitude to white-collar crime which South Africa can ill afford.

Perhaps the wave of violent crime in the country has deadened us to the seriousness of other forms of crime. Perhaps we have become so used to murder and rape that we shrug off crimes like corruption.

Because a crime like Yengeni's - defrauding parliament - is not accompanied by gunshots or knife wounds, there is a danger that it may seem unimportant.

It is not.

Corruption is widespread in South Africa and its effects are often dramatic. When a person in power abuses that power for his or her own benefit, the effects on other people's lives are immediate and lasting. We should not come to tolerate these crimes because they seem less serious than crimes of violence.

Nor should we imagine for a moment that a glorious "struggle" record somehow exempts anyone from the requirements of the law.

Yengeni's actions in the fight against apartheid make him a hero to many. But should this hero status put him above today's laws?

On the contrary: are South Africans not entitled to expect even more from "struggle" heroes than from others? Surely someone who fought so hard to install a democratic state should be counted on to honour that state and its institutions, rather than to defraud them?

No doubt the Department of Correctional Services has acted within the law in releasing Yengeni under correctional supervision after just four months of his four-year prison sentence, even if, on the face of it, this is treatment which the majority of offenders are not lucky enough to receive.

But the point is not whether or not the letter of the law was followed. The point is that a dangerous message is sent out when the punishment meted out to a very high-profile offender is so light.

Corruption is serious; it threatens our institutions and reduces our ability to keep our promises. It is not a trivial matter at all.

With acknowledgement to Cape Times.