ATT: THE EDITOR – BUSINESS DAY

Email: busday@bdfm.co.za

Failure is becoming a way of Life in South Africa. We see it in the Eskoms, the SAA’s and the SABC, but these are just the high profile failures. We see widespread failure in education where learners who fail are promoted to the next grade and we wonder why so many young people become unemployable.

The extent of the whole pattern of failure can be seen in the auditor general’s report on local government in the Free State. Not a single municipality achieved a clean audit last year. Thirty-nine percent of chief financial officers were deemed incompetent and R3.54-billion was wasted on unauthorised, irregular or fruitless expenditure. Key officials were incompetent, managers ignored the warning signs of problems and there were no consequences for poor performance and transgressions. Like the kids who failed, they were promoted and had their salaries increased.

When you see institutionalised failure on this scale in the basic units of governance then you must ask what is to become of this country? The ANC is transforming South Africa into a failed state.

What do we do about it? The answer is simple. Stop accepting failure as the norm. Demote. Reduce the salaries of the incompetent and throw out the corrupt. Now that really would be transformative!

MICHAEL BAGRAIM

19 June 2015