This is an open letter to our President, Jacob Zuma written on the day that we all celebrated our Freedom while commemorating the general elections held on 27 April 1994.
Dear President Zuma,
Congratulations on the 17th anniversary of our democracy. Like you, I think South Africa has many things of which it can justifiably feel proud No doubt that some people within your government are doing an excellent job in rooting out corruption and healing the wounds of the past.
Paddy Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com
Take Tokyo Sexwale, your Minister of Human Settlements. He has, with the Special Investigating Unit, uncovered corruption and fraud to the tune of R2-billion. He is trying to recoup that money and he’s bulldozing tens of thousands of houses and putting new ones up in their place. That appears to represent some excellent work, just as it is a serious indictment of his predecessor.
Similarly, the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor seems to be doing the whole country a service with the investment that’s been made in organisations such as the National Research Foundation and the wide-ranging support that she has garnered for the Square Kilometre Array. You removed her from the Department of Education and stuck her there instead, didn’t you?
Similarly, it seems that Pravin Gordhan is doing an excellent job with our finances and making sure that much of the money is collected and that people pay what they should pay to keep you chaps in government.
But, President Zuma, a lot of your ministers and appointees are failing dismally in their duty and are ripping off your government without a care in the world. And, it seems to me, that you and your subordinates are awfully tolerant about letting them do so too.
I’m sure I don’t need to go into the details of each case – you will be more informed than me or any of the media – but you will know what I’m referring to as I list a couple of examples:
- The awful lease deals for the South African Police Service that was approved by your Minister of Public Works, Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde. The Pretoria and Durban leases in fact. You appointed her, didn’t you? Just as you appointed Thuli Madonsela, the Public Protector who urged Mahlangu-Nkabinde to justify her actions and found the National Commissioner of Police Bheki Cele guilty of improper conduct and maladministration. You appointed all of these people, so can you explain their actions or justify their continued appointment in these positions? Surely within the ANC three are people who are more qualified and more suitable for these positions – or are they truly the best of the bunch?
- More than R56-billion is owed to municipalities throughout the country and some figures estimate that this figure is more than R70-billion. But the bulk of the money owed is because of inefficiencies in each one of the municipalities. Joburg alone is owed R2,8-billion and by its own admission its billing system is a total mess and will take months to resolve. But the city administrators and heads of local government are political appointees who were “deployed” to take care of local business on behalf of the ANC. Surely you need to deploy better people or do you simply not have anyone better than those already in the job? It really is a sad day if that’s the case.
- More than R2-billion had to be returned to the treasury because the respective provinces had not spent the money allocated to them. They simply weren’t efficient enough to get all their ducks in a row and spend the money they’d been given. So Mr Gordhan took it back and gave them less to spend this year. All except for the Western Cape who’d managed to spend its money. I suppose you can’t comment on the Western Cape ‘cause the ANC isn’t responsible for running that province is it?
- If you look around the country, continued service delivery protests are recorded in every province as disgruntled residents express just how fed up they are right now. So police officials shoot them? I know you don’t agree with their actions and you’ve called for moderation from the police so that the community can learn to trust them again. But let’s remember that it’s your comrades who are running those councils where the protests are most vociferous.
I’m sure you realise, as I do, that the list of complaints and failures is long and growing longer as it covers almost every facet of human endeavour in a country that needs all the skills it can muster.
But I must ask you this: Why do you – and your colleagues –keep appointing such incompetent people? I cannot, for one second, believe that everybody in South Africa is useless and when I look at the private sector and I see how well it performs, I am convinced that South African’s have an enormous amount of talent and ability?
Yet when I look at the government departments I see repeated graft, corruption, arrogance, ineptitude, lawlessness and incompetence and I’m left scratching my head. For goodness sake, what are you and your people doing?
You see we have highly educated, highly responsible and deeply moral people within our midst and yet somehow you and your comrades keep appointing buffoons.
Is this a misjudgement on your part? Is it that you expressed faith and belief in people who failed to live up to your expectations? Or is it that you have to repay those around you who have helped you get to where you are?
I fear it is the latter and I truly think that you owe it to South Africa to now start choosing people who can deliver real benefits to our democracy instead of choosing them on the basis of what it is they once did for you.
And just as my sentiment applies to you, so too does it apply to all those people going right down the chains of your command.
We all have so much to do: We have millions of people to feed, to house, to educate, to help find jobs and provide them with proper health care.
So please can we drop this jobs-for-pals mantra that has led this country into the mess it’s in today. We can’t afford to waste another R2-billion on houses that can’t stand up or spend R1,5-billion on lease agreements that are not prudent.
We’ve got more important things to spend our money on, such as making sure that the provincial projects get done so our work-starved construction and engineering sectors can do work here instead of taking their skills to foreign shores.
This mess must end – and let’s acknowledge that your own people have put us here. We can’t blame apartheid, the nationalists the United Party or Hertzog or Malan or any of those bigots anymore. That’s all done and dusted.
We can only blame ourselves - can’t we?
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn’t pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at via email.
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