SA needs professional, technical experts to run various departments

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe – who hasn’t covered himself in glory in his portfolio – downplays the idea of a minister of electricity, because this post is merely that of a “project manager”.

It was to be expected that those in the ANC who are responsible for us wallowing in the current power outage crisis – and Mantashe is at the head of the queue – should want to negate proposed solutions to divert attention from their own incompetence.

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Ironically, though, Mantashe is spot-on in his characterisation of the position of minister of electricity… because that is what any competent minister should be – a project manager. Such a person can manage a diverse team of people and meet diverse goals utilising diverse inputs.

That is what professional project managers do. That is exactly what ANC ministers do not do. They are not professionals at anything, nor experienced at anything other than playing party political games.

What we need, as a country, is for professional, technical experts to run our various departments – not people whose main interest in their portfolios is ensuring employment for their family and comrades and in returning political favours by way of contracts.

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There are plenty of those people available – some of them inside government, but the majority are already working in the private sector and academia.

Business wants to help get us out of this mess, as Business Leadership SA CEO Busi Mavuso has said. But it is being short-circuited at every turn by the ANC, which won’t provide proper guidelines or guarantees and, above all, doesn’t appear to want to accept help, because this would be confirmation of its failure.

President Ramaphosa then accuses the private sector of “moaning” and not assisting. This failing project called South Africa needs, for the first time since 1994, professional management.

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