Thousands of South Africans on Wednesday staged a campaign in the cities of Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, to protest the increasing corruption that has seen the gap between the poor and the rich steadily widened in Africa’s second largest economy.

The protest, which received the backing of more than 350 nongovernmental, labour and religious organisations, is expected to be a sustained campaign in order to force the government to be more proactive in tackling corruption.

According to the Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, there is need for a moral cleansing of South Africa.

“The corruption that is spreading its tentacles across our society is entrenching inequality,” he said in Cape Town as more than 2, 000 protested in front of parliament.

The government of President Jacob Zuma is accused of not doing enough to stamp out corruption, which has largely been blamed for the increasing unemployment among youth, who easily take out their frustrations on foreigners, mostly from other African countries.

Wednesday’s protesters demanded among other things that political party funding be made transparent, public servants wear name tags when at work, senior public officials have their lifestyle audited regularly by the Auditor-General.