Johannesburg – In my book We Can Fix Ourselves, published late last year, I wrote: “Could we seriously expect a school teacher, such as Dudu Myeni, to chair the board, lead and generally give direction to a specialised and competitive business such as an airline?”
This is in a chapter that deals with the rot, looting and shambles that brought SAA to its knees. The national carrier has since been refloated after undergoing a lengthy business rescue process.
After reading the first part of the Zondo Commission report, it becomes apparent that while the quote above is a factor, it pales into insignificance when compared to the others Zondo deals with in a pointed and clear manner.
In fact, the reading of the report leaves one with the impression that it was never the intention of the powers that be to run a successful and profitable SAA.
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The overwhelming desire was to steal as much as possible from a badly limping state-owned enterprise (SOE).
For that quest, academic qualifications, skills and expertise were not required. What were needed in abundance were deviousness, moral and ethical bankruptcy.
In the looting enterprise we saw at SAA and the other state companies, we find many highly qualified people who have divorced themselves from their consciences, moral campuses and ethics. And without conscience, we cannot be human and we cannot build an ethical and viable society.
At SAA, you would find chartered accountants, lawyers and corporate leaders with years of training and experience. Almost all of them have codes of conduct relating to their professions that guide their work and behaviour.
It should worry us enormously as a country that we have so many of our professionals and highly skilled people who do not believe professional codes of conduct matter.
Those in the boards and senior management structures at SAA and other SOEs would probably recite to you the King Codes of Corporate Governance at your prompting. Others would do the same about the oath they take that binds chartered accountants and lawyers.
Yet, when it came to their work at the SOEs, it seems that the oaths they took did not exist.
As a society, we should be asking ourselves why we seem to produce so many skilled people who do not believe that laws, regulations and corporate governance matter.
Is it perhaps the case that the erosion of conscience on the part of many in our society has led to us having too many politicians, professionals and corporate leaders who are bereft of ethical leadership?
Many of us do not litter, drive badly on the roads or take other people’s things because we are afraid of the police. We do it because it is the right thing to do. We have been nurtured by our families, school, church and communities to know the difference between right and wrong.
In other words, human beings are socialised to behave in a certain way that differentiate us from other animals. This is no comment on the fact that many animal species have strict order governing their lives.
Are we failing to socialise many in our society such that they become prone to behaviour that negates our humanity?
Could that be the reason why so many of our politicians, professionals and corporate leaders are morally and ethical wanting?
- Mangena is former minister of science and technology
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