THE trial last week of Schabir Shaik, a disgraced Indian businessman, and the revelation of his close links to Jacob Zuma, the embattled vice-president, have opened a window on the rampant political corruption at the heart of modern South Africa.

Although President Thabo Mbeki makes routine speeches against corruption, his government is showing an increasing tendency to clamp down on the media and the judiciary in its effort to sweep the problem under the carpet.

Shaik, who acted as banker for the governing African National Congress during the anti-apartheid struggle, was found guilty of two counts of corruption and one of fraud on Thursday.

The Durban court granted an order to seize assets worth £3.6m linked to Shaik, who admitted during his trial that he had lied to Nelson Mandela, Mbeki’s predecessor, about subsidising Zuma.

Although Zuma has insisted his “conscience is clear”, Shaik described in court how such payments allegedly percolated through every corner of Zuma’s life — including rent, loans and even pocket money for his children.

It emerged that Zuma owed Shaik about £180,000, although the court heard the Indian was still giving the vice-president money. There was no prospect that Zuma would ever be able to repay such “loans”, which, Judge Hilary Squires agreed, were intended to secure Shaik influence and contracts.

Zuma has insisted he has done nothing wrong and is not on trial.

Despite the case, he continues to enjoy support from the trade unions, the left and much of the ANC.

An apparently oblivious attitude towards corruption is now prevalent. A poll in January found 76% of South Africans believed corruption has worsened under the ANC, while 74% said it had “become a way of life, affecting police officers and senior people in government”.

Transparency International, a group that monitors corruption, put South Africa 12 places below Botswana in its latest international study, provoking an outburst from Mbeki, who attacked its methodology and blamed the organisation for creating “negative perceptions among global investors”.

The government called its own anti-corruption summit, which agreed that “corruption was not a post-apartheid phenomenon”.

Inconvenient revelations in the courts — such as those in the Shaik case — have embarrassed the ANC, which has announced plans to “change the collective mindset of the judiciary” so as to make them “more consonant with the anti-apartheid masses”.

There is a pattern of large-scale malfeasance being discovered then quietly vanishing.

Last year, for example, the football world was rocked by claims that bribery was so widespread among referees that it was impossible to find enough untainted officials to run the league.

Large-scale prosecutions were promised but did not occur — that would have meant exposing the bribe-givers, the big football bosses, some of whom are prominent in the organisation of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Similarly, last year 110 MPs — almost all of them in the ANC and including several ministers — were reported to be involved in a scam involving fraudulent travel expenses.

This number has since shrunk to 35, none of them ministers, and only eight have admitted their guilt.

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