Government and Justice
A headline in a weekly last week touched a raw nerve: “Spar hunts for CEO to clean up image.” As the words of the sub-editor jumped out to catch my attention, I wondered, should the citizenry not themselves be screaming for a more caring political leadership.
Irregularities that have sullied the reputation of the organisation have reportedly been going on for a while at the retail giant, and this had caused consternation and embarrassment to the investors and other interested parties. Now, acting pro-actively, the retail group is looking for a new leader, committed to sound leadership, ethics and development.
Organisations, companies and governments fail not by accident, but by design. Where rules and policies are flouted by sleight of hand, failure results.
Chairperson of the retail group Mike Bosman was quoted in the business section of the newspaper as saying: “We do want to move quickly…”
The “move quickly” words express urgency and have a special import – nobody in any organisation should tolerate sub-standard work, marred by crookedness and unethical behaviour.
Contrast the words of the retail board chair Bosman, to those we hear from our government and Eskom officials every day, it is not difficult to recognise the differences of emphasis: from Bosman, you hear the word of “urgency” being emphasised. From the government and Eskom, the words of urgency are underplayed.
To run governments and private entities, the underlying principles are the same, if you strip any traces of ideological trappings. The end goal is to maximise efficiency and dividends, and therefore promote better outcomes for the shareholders and the citizenry.
Staying with the retail analogy. If the board’s objective is to maximise efficiency by acting decisively and ethically to try to correct irregularities, is this not something the government leaders should not only emulate, but also put into practice in their own spheres of leadership?
Governments must show the propensity to display a modicum of courage – to punish, and not embrace, wrongdoers and thieves who operate outside the prescription of the law.
The energy crisis is a great concern to all South Africans. But government and power utility leaders tell us we have to swallow the pain and its inconvenience for the next two years.
In Mangaung President Cyril Ramaphosa recently admitted the ANC government knew about the impending disaster since 2008, but his organisation did nothing to put corrective measures to avert an impending disaster.
What must we draw from this casual approach by the government and leaders at Eskom to a crisis that not only threatens to destroy the economy, but has also put in jeopardy the livelihoods of the citizens? How do we as communities reconcile ourselves with the government’s inaction? Is it not the duty of the government to have in their employ experts and professionals who are trained to predict scenarios even before they occur?
This must amount to a dereliction of duties; an unforgivable infraction.
The government, through the Passenger Rail of South Africa and Department of Transport, has to ascertain the rail commuter services optimally provides to the citizens and business communities efficient services to meet their needs.
Today, the country’s railway stock has been vandalised and irreparably damaged under the government’s watch. This goes for Eskom as well.
The abiding question must be: as vandalism occurred to such an important national infrastructure, what was the government and its police doing? Did they sleep on the job?
In the end, we must come to the conclusion that the ANC-led government has consistently been negligent, lacking the desire and will to be the good stewards of the vineyard entrusted to it by the voting masses.
Like the chairman of the retail entity who is in search of a competent CEO, we as South Africans should be looking for competent leaders to run the country.
- Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, Anglican priest, ex-trade unionist and former publications editor of the SA Human Rights Commission publications.
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