Looters allowed to get off scot-free to maintain loyalty

Zuma’s age-old strategy is to collect dirt on his detractors by allowing them to loot as much as they like so that he can use them to serve his purposes.

I’m afraid affirmative action, employment equity and black economic empowerment have bequeathed us the likes of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, Brian Molefe, Collins Letsoalo, Dudu Myeni, Faith Muthambi, Ellen Tshabalala, Shaun Abrahams, Bathabile Dlamini and Des Van Rooyen, and many more political schmucks.

The list is endless. These deployed cadres not only behave like mamparas but they are highly paid mamparas prepared to sacrifice their lives for a place at the trough.

That Letsoalo has the power to increase his salary by 350% to nearly R6 million per annum boggles the mind. Where is the board of Prasa in all this? Who takes responsibility for financial accountability? Who has oversight?

Board chair Popo Molefe said company laws were flouted and hence a task team was appointed to terminate his appointment. There must be gross mismanagement at a high level if a task team is required to sack a CFO who dismisses employees who dare to expose his dictatorial “divide and rule” management style, his excesses of travel abroad, for example to Switzerland, Canada and the US within a matter of two months, as reported in Engineering News in July 2016. In an organisation struggling with financial sustainability, that R56 million out of a budget of R73 million goes to salaries, indicates that something is radically wrong.

We know at least three of the people above have fraudulent academic credentials. In his defence, Motsoeneng claimed qualifications were not a prerequisite for his job. I searched the internet for his CV to try and understand how this man ascended the post of COO of the SABC, an important constitutional organisation, with no matric qualifications.

His credentials are questionable: his measly career started in a Bantustan where he allegedly was close to chief minister Mopeli of Qwa Qwa. It is normally such people with questionable political roots who sidle up to ANC politicians declaring their loyalty and who are eventually promoted to do the bidding of the emperor. The ANC does not care from whence people come, provided they are prepared to sell their souls to a predatory party that will do anything to remain in power.

Motsoeneng also increased his salary by more than 50% – and that for someone without a matric. Always in conflict with staff, his board, suppressing dissent within the SABC, openly promoting Jacob Zuma, he became a law unto himself until the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that he was unfit for office.

Are we to believe that this kind of rogue behaviour is a consequence of racial transformation and, therefore, typical of state-owned enterprises under President Zuma’s governance – that cadres are allowed to loot as much as they like as long as they remain loyal? “Number One” recently brazenly stated he knew who was on the take in government.

Zuma’s age-old strategy is to collect dirt on his detractors by allowing them to loot as much as they like so that he can use them to serve his purposes. Any disloyalty will be rewarded with exposure of irregular behaviour which, in the first instance, was criminal behaviour. The only way to maintain control is to have dirt on your enemies. The enemies, in turn, stupidly wallow in the dirt, hence they are weak in ever winning a vote of no confidence against Zuma.