Letters: Failure of leadership

I refer to The North Coast Courier dated June 9, 2017 in which a couple of articles make reference to the worsening economic climate contributing to the declining standards in security and worsening unemployment.
It was suggested in a lead article that farm attacks are a consequence of deteriorating socio-economic circumstances and NOT motivated by race, politics or land issues and that petty crimes are a sign of worse to come.
The editor, in his Two Bits editorial comments page, mentioned the introduction of the phrase ‘White Monopoly Capital’ into the South African lexicon – a sound bite conjured up by a clever PR firm called Bell Pottinger – who were employed by the Gupta family to divert the attention from their nefarious attempts at state capture. A largely illiterate, gullible, uneducated and ignorant electorate bought into this concept and are using this as a justification for the perceived failure in transformation.
The real issue, of course, is the complete failure in our collective leadership from a president who conspired with this family and more importantly, the ANC executive who allowed it to happen. Those with a moral conscience, who dared to speak out, have been marginalised, vilified and expelled or fired.
The trove of e-mails which has exposed the extent of this ‘state capture’ defies belief. The latest being an attempt by this Mafia-like family to sell Denel’s intellectual property to India. The extent of their infiltration into state organs and SOE’s has metastasised into a cancerous tumour which has spread to the Treasury, Eskom, PRASA, mining and mineral rights, the media and, no doubt, more to follow, with further revelations to come.
Another article in The Courier, and not inconsequential, refers to the rates increase which will become effective from July. The rate of 8% is well above the officially published data which in April 2017 indicated that inflation had dropped to a record low of 5,3%. KwaDukuza mayor, Ricardo Mthembu, boldly justifies this increase to rising electricity tariffs – failing to highlight a mismanaged and corrupted Eskom – attempts to improve library facilities and promoting the use of ‘local employment’ when we have a dysfunctional education system that has failed to transform the uneducated and illiterate into employable individuals who could make use of libraries. The cynic in me suggests that the extra revenue generated by the increased rates will ultimately be classified in the next audit as ‘wasteful expenditure’. And the cycle continues.
CLAUDIO FERRI
Zimbali