LETTER: Stop eating all the cake!

Howard Skeens of Sunward Park writes:

Elections are next year, and we can be fairly sure that a couple of months before the latter, the metro will suddenly decide that billions in “irrecoverable” (supporters’) debt will need to be written off.

This is to try and appease the unhappy cadres of the parties in control of the metro. This pathetic debt collection record negatively impacts the metro’s cash flow and, thus, its ability to pay suppliers.

The metro’s finances, under ANC control for the past 25 years, have deteriorated to the point even ANC councillors have voiced concern about the poor financial situation. What can one expect when regular highly inflated tenders are awarded to “connections”, blatant fraud, padding of departments with expensive, incompetent cadres and euphemistic catchwords that fall under the title of wasteful expenditure?
double whammy – poor debt collection and disappearing funds.

The Finance MMC can huff and puff about the metro being in a sound financial position, but where there’s heavy smoke, there is a smouldering fire waiting to re-ignite. The hard-pressed (paying and shrinking) rate-payers always end up funding this nightmare (a carbon copy of the Eskom fiasco). There is some consolation in that the marginalised also suffer from no service delivery (fast forward to the debt write-off).

The latter must understand how to join the dots – voting for the ANC leads to poor/no service delivery and collapsed infrastructure.

How long before the government goes, reluctantly, cap in hand to the IMF?

I’m drooling at the prospect of the government being ordered to cut costs and bloated departments. They need to learn to stop eating all the cake.

Also Read: LETTER: Do you know Vleis van Zyl?

Also Read: LETTER: We keep paying for poor service