The other day I stumbled upon a rather interesting story.
It is something that happened in Slovenia, which by the way is a sovereign state located in southern central Europe with a population of about 2.07 million.
The story goes that Darij Krajcic, a member of parliament for the Marjan Sarec List (LMS) party, which is the senior partner in the ruling coalition, did not pay for his sandwich in a shop in Ljubljana.
As a result, he resigned from parliament.
Apparently, he walked off without paying because three supermarket employees had “treated (him) like air” and continued chatting. Thus, he was mad at poor service delivery.
There is also talk that the reason why Krajcic walked off with the sandwich is because he decided to put the shop’s surveillance system to test.
Whatever the real reason, Krajcic did return to the shop to pay for the sandwich. He also did apologise for his actions.
The resignation was prompted when the head of Krajic’s centre-left party, which is currently in power in the country, condemned the MP’s actions as “unacceptable”.
So what does this have to do with our sunny South Africa?
Let us consider our levels of corruption, especially the state capture. And consider how apparently businesspersons and politics in this country have been looting the coffers blind for almost a decade now.
And has anybody resigned? Has anybody apologised?
After all, we are not talking here about taking a sandwich, and then returning it; no, we are talking about millions of rand that have directly impacted governance in our country, and even led to the debacle at all the parastatals, including Eskom.
Yes, in our sunny South Africa it is a way of life to walk off with millions, leaving the masses to be impoverished while service delivery grinds to a halt in the midst of the darkness.
In Slovenia, an MP takes a sandwich – be it as part of an experiment or out of protest over poor service – and subsequently resigns even though returning to the shop to pay.
In South Africa, MPs apparently take truckloads of sandwiches but no one resigns or is even properly reprimanded.
So it seems in Slovenia the moral compass is working beautifully since the LMS party prides itself on high ethical standards. Good on them, and shame on us.
It is unthinkable in South Africa that an MP will resign, voluntarily, just for taking a sandwich! And apologise. And that an outcry will follow in Parliament. In our land of upcoming elections, MPs, it seems, are happy to eat the sandwich and go back for more, as if they are Oliver Twist who cannot get enough.
Definitely, the moral compass in the south of Africa is not just broken but it has become lost in the labyrinth of politician shenanigans, selfish ambitions and greedy exploits.
If this was a matter of poor service delivery that prompted the sandwich to be taken, then the Slovenian MP should better not come to visit our country.
Especially when it comes to the metro’s call centre that is supposed to expedite service delivery, yet it seems hardly anybody answers the phones or the system is usually offline.
Can we imagine how SA would look like today if a healthy sense of right and wrong still exist, driven by a sense of moral conscience, for then I fear many would have resigned over the years?
And they will all be queuing for a sandwich, which takes much longer than three minutes to be served.
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