AS government departments continue to crumble with more requests for government bailouts, the penny has obviously not dropped in those institutions that we are really beyond a crisis.
The lemmings continue to stampede towards the cliff.
Take for instance, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS, yes, somebody please do take it on):
The third in CBN’s successful series of webinar panel discussions addressing the water and sanitation related crisis, staged early in November, invited panel participation from the DWS.
Their terse response was that they would not participate due to the short notice they were given and that we should “Take notice that requests for participation in events and publications should be directed to the Department at least 12 months prior, in order to ensure that the required approvals are obtained and activities are budgeted for.” Italics my emphasis.
Is one to assume that there is no one steering the bus that has the competence to be accountable and answer the crucial questions affecting the health of millions of people? Perhaps they believe that the questioners will pass away during the 12 month period and their questions with them?
Accountability: isn’t that the joke word contained in an SA Christmas cracker?
As has been highlighted before in these pages, the SA Post Office has also approached the government for bailout as it is insolvent and is need of about R10-billion to meet its debt commitments – not for implementing measures to improve the ‘service’ it provides to the nation’s population I might add.
The new governor of the Reserve Bank has responded that the government’s cupboard is bare, so SOE’s had better pull their socks up and sort out their own mess.
To paraphrase he song “When the going gets tough, the weak ask for a bailout”.
Creative and /or logical thinking is clearly absent from the mindset of SOE’s generally incompetent managers, and it seems from their equally incompetent masters too, the responsible ministers and droves of political hangers-on, taking fat salaries for doing – nothing.
If you can keep your head whilst all about you are losing theirs, you don’t understand the situation.
ooooooOoooooo
I spent several weeks during November in the relative sanity of the UK, reconnecting with friends and family trying to wash away the effects of our horrendous lockdown which has left many both physically and mentally indelibly scared.
It’s not all beer and skittles there though, and whilst the Brits are famous for moaning about their lot, they have cause to complain about their rapidly rising cost of living and inflation, topped with a dollop of parliamentary sleaze.
Corruption, breaking rules and taking advantage of ones position as a member of parliament for personal financial gain, is not unique to South Africa. Like our own politicians and party chieftains, when caught out with their hands in the cookie jar, they express with astonished innocence and great indignation that they have ‘done nothing wrong’, and in the case of disgraced UK MP Owen Patterson, unrepentant: ‘I’d do the same thing again’. Despite trying to protect the errant MP by changing the rules, Boris Johnsons’ explanations failed to impress fellow Tory MP’s and Patterson bit the dust, siting the reason for his ‘resignation’ as an MP was due to ‘family concerns’. It just isn’t cricket.
And on that score, accusations of racism have caused a stir in the hallowed halls of English cricket, particularly Yorkshire County Cricket Club, forcing administrators to either apologise and/or resign from cosy employment.
Its cold comfort to accept that corruption, money laundering and corruption is endemic in society as a whole and the old fashioned values of common decency, duty and responsibility are a thing of the past. It’s no wonder that we no longer believe our elders and (no)betters.
Eish.
