What on earth has happened to accountability in South Africa?
Accountability can be described in its simplest form as having a sense of responsibility.
But in the tainted Rainbow Nation, it seems there is absolutely no desire to be responsible or to even hold people responsible when it comes to the looting of SA’s coffers.
We know of the reality of state capture, and we know that a judicial commission of inquiry has been established to look into the matter. Yet, still, nothing has yet happened or transpired to show the public that there will indeed be action, and not mere talk.
Recently, there was a huge outcry over former health MEC Qedani Mahlangu being re-elected into the Gauteng ANC’s provincial executive committee.
Remember Mahlangu resigned as health MEC after the Life Esidimeni scandal. This is when 144 mentally ill patients died following their removal from Life Esidimeni to unlicensed NGOs.
Brian Hlongwa‚ who has been implicated in a Special Investigative Unit probe of fraud and corruption worth R1.2-billion while he was Gauteng Health MEC, has also been elected on the committee.
Gauteng ANC deputy chairperson Panyaza Lesufi acknowledged the backlash over the appointments and said it was not as if the party had not acted against Mahlangu.
Where is the accountability really when it comes to the Life Esidimeni scandal? This was a tragic case, yet despite suffering dire consequences for one’s actions, you end up sitting pretty in another government office.
We would rather continue to play the blame game, which is nothing else than ‘being lame’ because if you play this game you keep on shifting the responsibility tag.
Yes, there is no more accountability. No more respect for life, or for values.
All the billions promised by investors will mean nothing because we as a country cannot function with dignity and honesty. No wonder the country is sinking deeper into an economic meltdown because of all the fraud, mismanagement and corruption.
Meanwhile, the taxpayers are called to save a sinking ship, but they are also sinking in debt because of the government’s shedding of responsibility.
I mean really, where is the accountability and taking responsibility at Eskom? Who knows how many have benefited illegally from the R19.6-b in irregular expenditure the utility incurred in the years since 2012.
In addition to this, there are known cases of brazen theft of resources by Eskom executives.
That is six years of running riot, plundering and causing the country to sink deeper into a black hole. What is management doing? As far as possible, the cash must be recovered and people must be jailed. But yeah right, you just feel this will never happen.
Sure, many employees have been fired after 628 disciplinary processes since April. These come in addition to the departure of 10 executives since January. But fraud and corruption roll on.
In the meantime, Eskom remains with a bloated cost structure. Eskom’s results show it now produces roughly the same amount of power as it did in 2006. Yet it employs more than 16 500 more people than it did back then.
Why is management not being held accountable? And why has all this disaster been allowed to drag on for so long?
In the meantime, in Tswane, a project intended to create jobs and contribute to South Africa’s aeronautical industry has apparently burned through R133-million over 12 years, without yielding a single tangible result, and is still in its “conceptual” phase.
The DA wrote a letter requesting that Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies intervene to ensure that Centurion Aerospace Village creates jobs and shows meaningful progress within the next six months. Again, where is the accountability?
Here in Boksburg, we keep hearing horror stories from OR Tambo Memorial, and even other state hospitals. But there is no real action to bring anyone to book.
At Scribante, the lifts are still not fixed, and the so-called haven is falling apart. And is anyone in government being held accountable for the misery suffered by the frail and the elderly? Of course not.
Fraud, corruption, theft and horrendous mismanagement that speaks of terrible management skills and incompetence are rife, but very little is being done. We just keep playing the blame game, or even better, we make a lot of noise to fool the masses and sweep it all under the carpet.
Yes, we may have forgotten about listeriosis and cars catching fire, but we shall not forget how this country is being plundered in broad daylight, all the while the taxpayers are struggling to feed their families.
Who is really still proud to be a South African?
