8 December 2019

The Cyril Ramaphosa presidency this week took its boldest decision yet when it placed beleaguered national carrier SAA under business rescue.

The move will hopefully save taxpay­ers from the numerous bailouts dished out to the airline – an asset the majority of South Africans don’t derive any direct benefit from.

We can’t, as a nation, be accustomed to carrying the can for state-owned enti­ties (SOEs) that manage their operations poorly, often with nefarious intent, in the knowledge that they will be bailed out by taxpayers.

The boldness espoused by the govern­ment this week should be but the begin­ning. The next port of call should be Meg­awatt Park.

Eskom has been the albatross over this economy and fiscus for too long, and the horror movie should come to an end soon­er rather than later.

Whenever the power utility finds it­self in financial trouble (which is often) it wraps itself in our national flag, cries that South Africa cannot survive without it and secures a handsome bailout from the National Treasury.

The multibillion-rand bailouts to state-owned entities have fallen short of chang­ing their fortunes around. The time to explore other options is now.

One needs to think no further than the SABC for perpetuating cycles of poor de­cisions leading to bailouts and further bad decisions.

SOEs must make up their minds. Either they are run like a business or they suffer the same fate of other businesses that are badly run.

Ramaphosa’s decision may not be pop­ular with the unions and other populist organisations, but it is the right call to make and worthy of our support.

Just quit for the sake of cricket

The South African cricket fraternity and the followers of the sport are divided right down the middle about the latest happenings at Cricket South Africa and allegations of misman­agement and dictatorial tendencies levelled at suspended CEO Thabang Moroe and president Chris Nenzani.

Depending on which side of the fence you are standing, there has been support from some quarters and loathing in some for Moroe, who has been labelled out of his depth as far as cricket is concerned and a bully by detractors.

His supporters mainly blame the establishment, especially the SA Cricketers’ Association, for his woes and fingers have been pointed at the associa­tion for setting Moroe up to fail. So why was Moroe appointed in the first place if he had no knowledge about how the sport should be run?

The coup has been plotted from within and sponsors have been invited to exert more pressure. Moroe has no chance to weather this storm. He must just quit as the odds are heavily stacked against him.

No individual is bigger than the game. Even those before him and those touted to take over will face the same dilemma.