Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko delivered a scathing report to parliamentarians about suspended National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega, saying she has brought the police into disrepute.
Nhleko and President Jacob Zuma must come clean and tell us why they ever thought Phiyega was suitable for the job in the first place. She had no policing experiencing and allegations about her fitness for office have been around a long time, with no reaction from them, until recently.
A similar crisis is developing at SAA – or should I say, another crisis. Chairwoman Dudu Myeni cancelled a lease agreement for new aircraft with Airbus, apparently without the knowledge or approval of SAA’s executives, incurring a cancellation penalty of R1.5 billion.
Her intention is to lease aircraft from Airbus via a third party, which the company indicated it had ethical difficulties with, incurring the wrath of Treasury, which warned of the financial and legal ramifications if the proposal goes ahead. It makes no sense because it's more costly than to lease directly from the manufacturer, not counting the penalty. Little doubt a connected person will gain from third-party commissions.
Phiyega has rejected the “damning” reports against her. SAA is under the control of Treasury but Myeni is apparently allowed to do as she pleases – I haven’t read of a ministerial investigation into her conduct. Any why shouldn’t they? Both were appointed without any specialist experience. Both were/are favoured by the president, and ANC, and have weathered long-standing grievances about their performance reportedly as a result of this connection.
In related news, one in three municipalities is dysfunctional and the SA Post Office is experiencing a melt-down. A friend who works at the Post Office has, for another month, received only half her salary. She says the problems at the organisation are due to mismanagement, fraud, corruption, nepotism and huge payouts for executives. Referring to the president's R250 million palace, Nkandla, paid for by the taxpayer, a black colleague told her he too would steal if he got the chance.
These are extraordinary situations and indicates wide-spread incompetence, management failure and how corruption has infected every level of state institutions. This is another instance, in the public sector, of appointing people, often pals, who have no qualifications for the job and don't know what they're doing, and who are milking the state and taxpayer for personal gain.
This is what happens, and we should not be surprised when things, with the regularity of a Swiss watch, go wrong: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Why should they - government, president - believe "order can be imposed when they themselves don't believe in it" (Yuval Noah Harari from Economic Insights e-newsletter).
Police, SAA, Post Office and municipalities, to name a few, are proof – if proof was ever needed – of the failure of affirmative action and cadre deployment, and the inexorable failing of state insitutions.
But still we ignore the warnings. Shame on us for meekly allowing this, and shame on the government for facilitating it.
Nhleko and President Jacob Zuma must come clean and tell us why they ever thought Phiyega was suitable for the job in the first place. She had no policing experiencing and allegations about her fitness for office have been around a long time, with no reaction from them, until recently.
A similar crisis is developing at SAA – or should I say, another crisis. Chairwoman Dudu Myeni cancelled a lease agreement for new aircraft with Airbus, apparently without the knowledge or approval of SAA’s executives, incurring a cancellation penalty of R1.5 billion.
Her intention is to lease aircraft from Airbus via a third party, which the company indicated it had ethical difficulties with, incurring the wrath of Treasury, which warned of the financial and legal ramifications if the proposal goes ahead. It makes no sense because it's more costly than to lease directly from the manufacturer, not counting the penalty. Little doubt a connected person will gain from third-party commissions.
Phiyega has rejected the “damning” reports against her. SAA is under the control of Treasury but Myeni is apparently allowed to do as she pleases – I haven’t read of a ministerial investigation into her conduct. Any why shouldn’t they? Both were appointed without any specialist experience. Both were/are favoured by the president, and ANC, and have weathered long-standing grievances about their performance reportedly as a result of this connection.
In related news, one in three municipalities is dysfunctional and the SA Post Office is experiencing a melt-down. A friend who works at the Post Office has, for another month, received only half her salary. She says the problems at the organisation are due to mismanagement, fraud, corruption, nepotism and huge payouts for executives. Referring to the president's R250 million palace, Nkandla, paid for by the taxpayer, a black colleague told her he too would steal if he got the chance.
These are extraordinary situations and indicates wide-spread incompetence, management failure and how corruption has infected every level of state institutions. This is another instance, in the public sector, of appointing people, often pals, who have no qualifications for the job and don't know what they're doing, and who are milking the state and taxpayer for personal gain.
This is what happens, and we should not be surprised when things, with the regularity of a Swiss watch, go wrong: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Why should they - government, president - believe "order can be imposed when they themselves don't believe in it" (Yuval Noah Harari from Economic Insights e-newsletter).
Police, SAA, Post Office and municipalities, to name a few, are proof – if proof was ever needed – of the failure of affirmative action and cadre deployment, and the inexorable failing of state insitutions.
But still we ignore the warnings. Shame on us for meekly allowing this, and shame on the government for facilitating it.
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