The coffee is steaming hot in front of us but we seem to be incapable of smelling it.
The president of the republic, Jacob Zuma, and his family have been found to have benefited massively and improperly from building at his palatial estate at Nkandla.
Upgrades costing R215-million have been completed on Zuma's home and he wants the nation to believe that he did not know about them, had no hand in them and so will not take responsibility for any of them.
With wanton looting of the public purse exposed, the president sits in office with impunity and without shame.
The chairman of the Elections Commission of SA (also known as the IEC), Pansy Tlakula, also does not seem to think her continued presence at the head of the institution undermines its credibility.
With elections due on May 7, Tlakula, has been found - not just by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela but also by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditors appointed by the finance minister - to have played a role in the awarding of a tender to a company with which she had links.
Last week she brazenly lectured political parties about good behaviour during the coming elections. This despite the fact that, as reported in this newspaper last week, the PwC report concurred with and vindicated Madonsela's findings.
It said: "Advocate Tlakula, Mr Norman du Plessis, as the deputy chief electoral officer corporate services, and Mr Stephen Langtry, as the manager in office of the CEO, should each be held responsible for the role they played that resulted in a procurement process being followed that was not fair, equitable, transparent, competitive or cost-effective."
If, as Tlakula says, she is innocent of any wrongdoing then surely she should, in good conscience, step aside until her name has been cleared .
Not here, not in South Africa.
On the day the public protector comprehensively proved that a crime had been committed against the taxpayer on Zuma's watch, and that he had benefited from this crime, he gave a speech in which he did not see fit even to mention her findings.
You see, he is not at all ashamed. He appears not to care that he has been exposed, that the world is pointing at him and laughing at him - and at us. He has no shame. And without a sense of shame, an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, he will remain in office and continue as if nothing were wrong. In his warped view, the only thing that could lead to his removal from office would be a jail sentence.
Twenty years into our democracy we are sliding from high ideals into a free-for-all in which politicians are a law unto themselves and accountability is a word we use only in Power Point presentations.
In any democracy worth its salt, Tlakula would have, of her own volition, stepped down to protect the integrity and credibility of the institution she leads. Who, today, can believe that an institution led by a person found by two credible investigations to have acted as she did could run free, fair and independent elections?
Given the allegations about the elections held in Tlokwe, for example, do we want further tarnishing of the elections commission's name?
Even more incredible is that Tlakula's fellow commissioners at the IEC have not raised their hands and said: "Not in our name."
Their silence speaks volumes. Their inaction says they are comfortable with a situation in which one person brings down the house we have all built.
This is also what the ANC's highest decision-making body between conferences, its national executive committee, is saying about the party it leads. Not a single member of the committee is prepared to raise his hand and say to Zuma: "This far and no further." In the ANC NEC, the rot is now endemic.
It is, of course, easy to point fingers and accuse Zuma, his friends Dina Pule and Humphrey Mmemezi, and others, of all sorts of things. Truth is, they are not the guilty party here. We are.
South Africans deserve these leaders. We deserve a Zuma, because we have rewarded him for his scandals: Guptagate, Khwezigate, Malawigate, the Spy Tapes, Schabir Shaik .The list is long. The truly depressing part is that these "leaders" are busy subverting our institutions and turning them into paper tigers. By the time they leave office - for they shall - they will have done a huge amount of damage. They will have crippled the public protector's office and any other institution that is supposed to hold their like to account.
Smell the coffee, South Africa. Your country is being stolen.
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