CAPITALISTS - ANC's COMRADES OF CONVENIENCE

A number of South Africa's parastatals are at death's door.  The Post Office and SAA immediately come to mind, with others seemingly not far behind.

The ANC government is faced with two choices: dust off casket carrying horse drawn carriages for state sponsored parastatal funerals, or as last resort, turn to capitalists to effect critical life support measures to resurrect and restore parastatal economic viability, after more than two decades of destructive maladministration.

The first to enter the parastatal lion's den is Mark Barnes, a prominent business executive with a proven track record.  He will head the Post Office. Interestingly enough he offered his services with government's blessing.  Time will tell whether it was an act of brilliance or stupidity.   Hopefully the former, even though the odds are stacked against him. One merely has to reflect on the miserable failures of Meyer Kahn and Bobby Godsell whose efforts to turn around the police and Eskom were undermined and subsequently defeated by political interference.

When the chips are down, the ANC government unhesitatingly welcomes the business acumen of capItalists who are willing to step up to the plate.  The welcome mat extended to Mark Barnes is a far cry from Jacob Zumas's recent address to Cosatu, where he characterised capitalism as a dictatorship and capitalists as the enemy.  Why then accept the services of a capitalist?  Multiple reasons, but in a nutshell - hypocrisy.

I have never been an admirer of Nietsche, but what he said in the context of Zuma's address to Cosatu is tellingly apposite:  "Learning from one's enemies is the best way to love them; for it makes us grateful to them."

It is not too late for Zuma and his party to learn, love and express gratitude to capitalist Mark Barnes, and other capitalists who follow his patriotic example.

ENDLESS GOVERNMENT WASTE & MORE . . .

The Auditor-General's report on the financial condition of provincial and national government departments was again symptomatic of a bloated government bureaucracy gormandising at the trough.

The report highlights the loss of R26 billion of public funds through irregular expenditures.   In addition, of the 468 entities audited, 355 received an unqualified audit.  According to the report, the Auditor-General had to make 'corrections' to 131 entities to reflect a better outcome. Obviously 'corrections' do not equate with the euphemism known as creative accounting.  Nonetheless, clarification on the nature of the corrections must be forthcoming.

In response to the report, a spokesman for the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa recommended the creation of an integrity commission as a chapter nine institution.  The role of the integrity commission would serve to prevent  and combat corruption and maladministration. Not so, as it will suffer the same fate as other well-intentioned commissions - consignment to the dust-heap.

For too long provincial and national government departments have engendered a mentality of entitlement devoid of accountability. In doing so, a culture of corruption without consequences pervades South Africa's landscape. This will end when laws, already in place, are enforced and long prison sentences imposed as a deterrent to others.  The solution lies with the police and the prosecuting authority. They have yet to earn their pay cheques.

COSATU - SOMETHING IS ROTTEN

Cosatu's elective congress commenced this week.  Thus far, no earth shattering developments, besides the usual factional infighting, and calls for unity.  But, to paraphrase a character in Hamlet, something is rotten in Cosatu.

Cosatu's is in the throes of an upheaval, and  in the words of its president Sudomo Dlamini, the federation "is eating itself".  The federation is no longer relevant to thousands of workers. Moreover, the new generation of skilled workers have no need for a labour union. Their skills allow them to independently negotiate favourable terms of employment.

Cosatu's leaders know the federation is in crisis, but only offer bald allegations of foreign governments, particularly the US, attempting  to destroy Cosatu. In his address, Dlamini commented that "People are pumping money to destroy Cosatu.  After showing America proof they were funding . . . they admitted it."  I suspect, during the course of Dlamini's career as a trade unionist,  he attended The School of Scapegoating, where he learnt, that when all else fails, blame the US.  A nonsensical and plainly stupid ploy.

Public-sector unions are Cosatu's lifeline. It remains to be seen if the line will be severed due to future wage demands.  In the meantime,  Cosatu is the ANC's convenient vote canvasser for retention of political power.

Cosatu's relevance has been reduced to serving the needs of the ANC, and the personal ambitions of its leaders.

LIES & REWARDS

I previously commented on the ANC government's predilection to "reward" ambassadorial appointments to those indelibly tainted by scandal, incompetence and wrongdoing.  I predicted the next ambassadorial appointment would be Riah Phiyega.  As it turns out, I was wrong, as the next in line for a top foreign post is former crime intelligence boss major-general Chris Ngcobo.

The former intelligence boss was caught lying about having a matriculation certificate.  When confronted, Ngcobo brazenly maintained he mistakenly confused "Grade 10 and Standard 10".  Rather than wait the outcome of a disciplinary hearing. Ngcobo resigned from the police in July, 2015, and with the blessing of  Luthuli House commenced classes at the diplomatic academy in Pretoria.  It has been reported that his likely assignment is Mali - a poor decision for one who has no prior diplomatic experience, fluency in French, let alone experience with a country fighting terrorism.

Based on past appointments to foreign posts, Ngcobo will join a select group of miscreants, disgraced ANC comrades, appointed as ambassadors, notwithstanding acts of moral turpitude committed by them.

In good governance countries,  ambassadors are appointed primarily from the ranks of career foreign officers with a spattering of patronage appointments to far and away humdrum places. Nonetheless, both appointments share requisite common characteristics: integrity, intellect, experience and above all honesty.  That cannot be said for Ngcobo and his predecessors, the likes of Carl Niehaus  and Mohau Pheko, who also lied about their qualifications.

It is distressing to witness the disintegration of the ANC government's moral imperative  - an imperative that past icons of the movement fought and died to preserve.  Fortunately they are not with us to also witness the rot.

ZUMA AND THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

President Jacob Zuma has belatedly attempted to extricate himself from comments he made that the ANC took precedence over the country.  What he meant to say,  according to the President, was that the ANC still comes first, but his obligations to the country do not come second.

The President's clarification, despite floundering in semantics, does not pass the smell test.

Our Head of State is not a complicated man. He wears his heart on his sleeve, when speaking extemporaneously to an audience. He meant what he said - the ANC and the country are conjoined twins.

ANC leadership has routinely extolled the virtues of democratic principles and the constitution - the bedrock of the country.  In a "New York minute" the President opened the door to his and the ANC's proclivity to the very anthesis of constitutionalism - authoritarian rule.

The President has done the country a good turn in speaking the truth, and in doing so, has politically set the country free.

SOUTH AFRICA'S DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS - NO BANG FOR THE BUCK

In response to a parliamentary question, the ANC government confirmed that the country spends R3.2 billion annually on diplomatic missions around the world. It is difficult to visualize how many rand there are in R3.2 billion, and more difficult for politicians who are spending fortunes in taxpayer money. To put it in better perspective, some billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive, and some billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. So, with this in mind, do we really want to to be saddled with the exorbitant cost of maintaining 126 embassies - the highest number after the US. The answer, in economic terms, is a simple one - the country cannot afford it, and must cut its cloth accordingly. The money saved by reducing diplomatic missions can be directed to ever-increasing problems facing the country - housing, unemployment, poverty, crime, infrastructure, and a host of other chronic ills. There are those in government who argue that diplomatic missions serve as conduits for trade that result in benefits to South Africa, and therefore outweigh the cost of maintaining such missions. One has yet to see hard evidence in support thereof. Until then, the assertion has the apocryphal equivalent of a belief in the tooth fairy. Solutions for South Africa's problems are not to be found abroad, and certainly not within the plush interiors of diplomatic missions. From the ANC government's perspective there is a purpose in having an obscene number of diplomatic missions. They serve as depositories for appointed ambassadors who are "rewarded" for incompetence, scandal and wrongdoing. One suspects it will not be long before the next ambassadorial appointment is announced. Can you say, Riah Phiyega?

A MAN DEFINED BY ARROGANCE

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula and his department were prominently featured, at taxpayers expense, in a full page advertisement in the Cape Times (15/10/15), and presumably in other newspapers of daily circulation. The department was featured because it received a clean audit award from the Auditor-General. Knowing the minister's penchant for unrestrained exuberance and self-aggrandisement, it would not be surprising if he tweeted this achievement to the sounds of "seventy-six trombones and a hundred and ten cornets". One can understand the minister's delight in the department receiving a clean audit - a rarity indeed amongst government departments where waste, incompetence , corruption, and a host of other ills plentifully abound. Truth be told, however, a clean audit should be the norm and not the exception. The fact that the minister deemed it necessary to incur, at presumably great cost, full page newspaper ads to assert that he and his department, are not a "bunch of losers", is simply grandstanding. Moreover, it evokes a deep sense of sadness in that a rare clean audit somehow prevents South Africa's moral barometer from plunging further. Aristotle aptly summed it up: "One swallow does not a summer make". The minister in the ad stated that he and his department "treat public money with the utmost care". Not so, spending taxpayer money on a self-congratulatory message is not only wasteful, but pompous and careless. In the future one hopes the minister will deliberate long and hard before spending taxpayer money on self-promotional newspaper ads. Instead he should earmark said funds to improving dilapidated sports facilities in the townships. I, for one, will then desist from taking umbrage to his use of less costly tweets, even if laced with hubris.

THE GOOD LIFE OF A VICE-CHANCELLOR & LITTLE TO SHOW FOR IT

A number of university vice-chancellors have recently spent time in the trenches fighting the fires of student unrest. One assumes that fighting such fires was not a contemplated job duty by those presently employed as vice-chancellors in the new South Africa. The unrest will run its course, and vice-chancellors will resume their routine administrative activities. In doing so, the question has arisen whether parity exists between their responsibilities, and the remuneration they receive. One newspaper addressed the issue with the heading: 'Obscene' pay to varsity heads under scrutiny". It was reported that vice-chancellor remuneration ranged between R4.2 million and R2.4 million per year, besides presumably additional perks amounting to several thousands of Rands. Higher Education spokesman, Khaya Nkwanyana, tellingly commented that university vice-chancellors based their remuneration on compensation received by their counterparts in Europe. If so, therein lies the problem. There is a vast academic divide between institutions of higher learning in Europe and South Africa. The divide is the difference between excellence and mediocrity, with South Africa falling into the mediocre category. That being said, it would be foolhardy to assert that a local university vice-chancellor, other than possibly Professor Jansen of Free State University, could be considered for a vice-chancellorship at a top-tier university in Europe, the United States, or Canada. Perhaps our vice-chancellors should be required to justify their pay cheques, which in most instances, exceed the pay cheques of our Head of State and the Chief Justice. It cannot be because the universities they represent enjoy top international ranking. Far from it! Vice-chancellors will likely argue that a significant reason for dismal international ranking is linked to the lack of adequate funding, now further exacerbated by a zero increase in fees in 2016. Vice-chancellors, besides government, must step into the breach to cover the 2016 fee shortfall of R2.9 billion, and some R40 billion if free university education for the poor is implemented. One idea being floated (and gaining traction) is a cap on remuneration for vice-chancellors. Not yet broached is the role of vice-chancellors in securing endowments to facilitate a university's financial health. By doing so, students will decidedly benefit from scholarships or reduced fees. In contrast to universities in Europe and North America, South African universities have little or no endowment at all. This is totally unacceptable, and to remedy the situation vice chancellors must be required (as do their foreign counterparts) to direct fund development initiatives by cultivating friends and donors to the university. An endowment program is essential to the financial wellbeing of a university as it generates more cash for everyone on campus. There is a growing perception that, for too long, vice-chancellors have enjoyed the fruits of academia, but in return, have not performed with sufficient executive skill consistent with their pay cheques. The disconnect must not continue.

GWEDE MANTASHE - A RELIC FROM THE PAST

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe wasn't a happy camper following former president Kgalema Motlanthe's scathing criticism of the ANC, and its alliance partners for betraying the revolution. In an editorial in Business Day, Mantashe responded to the former president's critical remarks by castigating him for seeking celebrityhood through criticism, amongst other didactic mouthfuls. Mantashe is not one of the plain vanilla communist apparatchiks within the party's alliance. His ongoing love affair with materialistic dialectic communism with a dash of Maoism, is embedded in his political makeup. Therein lies a problem - Mantashe's deceptive reliance on Mao's purported democratic teachings to mollify the former president's criticism. History records that Mao, in practice, was never a supporter of democracy. In truth and in fact, he was a communist tyrant who orchestrated the Cultural Revolution resulting in the killing of some 1.5 million people. So much so, for Mantashe's revisionist take on history. If Mantashe decides again to engage in pseudo-intellectual pursuits, he should take the time to select an historical unblemished and heroic character, when firing back at critics. For now, he is shooting blanks.

AGOA - A Lesson In Self-Interest

The AGOA debacle prominently features on South Africa's 24 hour news cycle. Adding to the mess are local trade unions, Cosatu and Fawu. Both are angry at the United States for allegedly undermining South Africa's agricultural industry. As a rule, I would not take the time and effort to educate those in Cosato and Fawu on the specifics of AGOA, but because nothing is more dangerous than ignorance, an exception to the rule is warranted. AGOA is a benevolent creature of statute passed by the US Congress and enacted into law. The legislation offers immense trade benefits to qualifying Sub-Saharan African countries for duty free access to the US market. South Africa is currently an AGOA beneficiary resulting in many thousands of local jobs, and millions of Rand in export revenue. If I am able to impart one piece of information to local unions, it is an understanding of the unilateral nature and scope of non-reciprocal trade preferences under AGOA . To put it simply: South Africa was not a party, contractual or otherwise, to AGOA, and therefore it does not rise to the level of a bilateral treaty between both countries. South Africa must meet published eligibility requirements under AGOA, one of which is elimination of trade barriers. In short, AGOA is a magnanimous gift to Sub-Saharan qualifying countries. No self-respecting unionist should argue otherwise. To union leaders who still feel aggrieved by the US move, note that South Africa's lifeline to AGOA can be severed by South Africa at anytime. It is not as if the US is holding a gun to South Africa's head. Union leaders should take the time to see the wood for the trees - the big picture - before engaging in further anti-US rhetoric. Preferably, now armed with insight of the Agoa trade regime, and mindful of the extraordinary trade benefits that redound to South Africa, union leaders should insist that Minister Davies lay down his fiddle and get the job done.

AGOA and Feet Dragging

Procrastination is the thief of time, but for South Africa, procrastination is the thief of invaluable trade concessions with the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In a recent press briefing, Trade and Industry Minister Davies expressed surprise to the announcement that the US will suspend AGOA benefits for South African agricultural products to the US. The suspension takes effect within 60 days unless issues relating to US imports of meat and poultry are resolved. It is no secret that Davies and his trade envoy have been dragging their feet in concluding an agreement with their US counterparts. US patience has run its course for South Africa, and in American parlance, Davies must either fish or cut bait. As it is, his role has been less than stellar. On its face, resolving the issues under AGOA should not have been a problem. However, there are geo-political issues at stake - issues such as the Security Bill awaiting President Zuma's signature, and South Africa's bedfellow relationship with China and Russia. Synergistically, South Africa has painted itself into a corner, and, in fact, is its own worst enemy. To put it bluntly: South Africa, in American parlance, is between a rock and a hard place. This late in the day, there is no realistic option but to accept the US conditions. There are those who contend the US is bullying South Africa to accept its conditions. This is not so, as AGOA is a trade concession regime that redounds to the benefit of South Africa, and other qualifying African countries. To all intents and purposes it is a magnanimous gift from the US, and South Africa would do well not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Gary Player: Happy 80th Birthday From Your Racist Soul Mates

Dale Hayes' column wishing Gary Player a happy 80th birthday (5/11/15) was a whitewashed tribute to the man and his professional golfing career. Hayes tellingly points out that "Gary has always been very patriotic to South Africa. It is his home . . . and he was always prepared to pay the cost of being a South African in those dark days of apartheid". Hayes, however, fails to mention that in the dark days of apartheid, Player's affaire de coeur with the apartheid regime. In his book Grand Slam Golf, Player wrote: "I am of the South Africa of Verwoerd and apartheid . . . to maintain civilised values and standards amongst the alien barbarians . . . The African". In addition, it was no secret that Player was used as a de facto ambassador for the apartheid government, and lent his support to the government's Committee in Fairness for Sport to overcome South Africa's global boycott. Player was subsequently added to the UN's blacklist for breaking the sports boycott. Player is known as the "Black Knight", presumably based on a noble character in Arthurian legend. Based on Players's despicable racist past, the title is decidedly undeserving. In closing, birthday wishes from your racist soul mates, Verwoerd, Vorster and PW Botha.

EFF's Survival Disconnect

Parliament's passage of the Criminal Matters Amendment Bill has imposed harsh sentences on those who steal, or tamper with the country's infrastructure. According to Justice Minister Masutha , 179 metric tons of copper were stolen, in April, 2015, alone, at a replacement cost of R13.6 million. The magnitude of the impact to the country's infrastructure, and ultimately the economy, cannot be downplayed, or trivialised. It is a crisis of huge proportions. Besides the EFF, the bill was largely supported by opposition parties. The EFF argued that "metals theft was a survival-based crime", because the ANC government was failing poor people. By implication, according to the EFF, metals theft should not rise to the level of a particularly serious crime, or at all - a typical and baseless tactic to appeal to EFF supporters. The EFF is correct in one respect: metals theft is survival-based, but "survival" for the country in terms of its essential infrastructure. There is ample evidence that organized crime is a major player in the commission of metals theft, and related offenses. The bill, when enacted, must serve as a deterrent to those who intend committing economic sabotage against the country. In a perfect South Africa, the need for harsh sentences would be unnecessary. However, as we are not living in a perfect South Africa, severe sentences must be imposed. Without significant jail time for offenders, and no possibility of parole, business will be as usual.

ANC and the Art of Lip Service

The ANC's propitiatory reaction to former president Kgalema Motlanthe's scathing criticism of the party was out of character. The ANC is notorious in ignoring criticism. The fact that the party deemed it necessary to issue a vacuous statement is understandable. The party simply could not ignore criticism from one of South Africa's most distinguished public figures and prominent party member. But, other than paying lip service, the rot continues.

The DA's Rush to Judgment

The ink of Dianne Kohler Barnard's message on Facebook had not yet "dried" when the DA's leader, Mmusi Maimane, leveled charges against her. Her membership in the party was terminated for mistakenly reposting a received message praising PW Botha for being "far more honest than any of these ANC rogues" and providing "a far better service to the public". Many would argue that the comment had a stinging truthfulness to it, or at the very least, was within the parameters of fair comment. Clearly Kohler Barnard's reposting of the message was the height of stupidity. However, her stupidity does not necessarily translate into racism. By all accounts, the former MP is not, and has never evinced racist tendencies, or support for the apartheid regime. Kohler Barnard immediately apologised, expressed remorse, but no matter how genuine and sincere the depth of her apology, the reposted message presented an exploitative and irresistible opportunity for the DA to hang her out to dry in furtherance of professing the DA's zero tolerance to apartheid supporters. The party wasted no time in chewing and spitting Kohler Barnard out of the party - a disingenuous manoeuvre designed to affirm the party's racial inclusiveness to black voters. The fact that the DA felt the need, given the circumstances, to throw Kohler Barnard under the bus, does not bode well for the party.