Daily Dispatch

Get the Legends project moving

HOWEVER one looks at it, the plea to premier Phumulo Masualle by National Heritage Council CEO Advocate Sonwabile Mancotywa to teach provincial director-general Marion Mbina-Mthembu some good manners, is extraordinary.

That someone as young and respected as Mancotywa appointed a former MEC for arts and culture in the Eastern Cape when he was only 29 years old, would actually need to write to Masualle to complain about MbinaMthembu’s behaviour, is bad enough.

That it was over the DG’s angry outburst at, and subsequent walkout of, a meeting over the province’s headline branding exercise, Home of the Legends, is almost incomprehensible.

Putting together a branding campaign should be a whole heap of fun. This is where creativity and strategy merge into something that should be bright, energising and attractive that adds value to marketing communication about our province.

This is where we need bright rising stars such as Mancotywa who clearly has a deep passion for this province, a sharp intellect and the kind of energy needed to drive the campaign.

And the campaign does need to be driven. It has bumped and bungled along for five excruciating years, in itself a damning indictment of the managerial skills of our bureaucracy.

If any private company took five years to sort out its branding message it would be bankrupt before getting out of the starting blocks.

The errors in it from the start were apparent, just as it needed someone to take it by the proverbial scruff of the neck, get the facts together, put the campaign on the right road and give it a good shake to get it moving.

Mancotywa, in his amazing letter to Masualle, now tells us that the campaign, 80% completed, is on the verge of collapse – because the No 1 bureaucrat in the province evidently has anger-management issues.

Branding campaigns aside, the claim from such a reputable source that the top bureaucrat in our province is unable to function as a leader, is deeply distressing.

One area in which the Eastern Cape appears to consistently fail, but needs most, is leadership.

We have seen it repeatedly in failures in education, health, infrastructure, financial control and ultimately economic growth.

Of course it can be argued that most of these failures were almost predestined because of the sheer complexities and magnitude of the tasks required, especially in education and health.

But in a branding campaign? What on earth are the complexities here?

We have eminent historians, as well as substantial human resources, on which Home of the Legends can be built quickly and easily.

Yet five years later, and 80% complete, we have a top public servant’s intemperate and unprofessional behaviour threatening to torpedo it into oblivion.

Please, Mr Premier, let’s get real and professional. Let’s get people who can do the job properly, and get the job done.