Thirty years is enough

Willem Cronje hit the nail on the head in saying there is an urgent need to “break from static to dynamic ... to focus relentlessly not on race, but on demonstrated competence” (“SA must focus not on race, but on competence,” February 7).

In stark contrast, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address demonstrated once again how detached our present leadership is from the lived experience of the people of this land.

We have deluded ourselves for too long that one of the prime BEE beneficiaries and practitioners-in-chief of cadre deployment could change spots and lead us away from the cul-desac on offer from the government’s policy mix, to which he was party for several years together with much of the corruption/patronage embedded old guard still serving in the cabinet.

The president is right that the ANC has had 30 years to show us what it can achieve. There can be no denying that a bright start was made, but once HIV/Aids denialism and blind support for the obvious beginnings of Zimbabwean selfdestruction took hold, followed by the ANC elite’s loss of moral compass at home.

Pretty much everything the national government has been responsible for is dysfunctional, yet it keeps on trying to centralise control of more and more while delivering precious little of the promised “better life for all”.

We the voters need to send the message that 30 years is quite long enough. The ANC has had its turn. We need fresh, youthful talent who understand the way the world of progress works. There must be zero tolerance for corruption, the best available education from the bottom up, and a merit-based, competent, people-serving public sector. Get those three pillars in place and the skills and capital required for much improved economic growth will follow as night follows day.

Peter Trengove-Jones

Cape Town