Extreme greed of a few tarnishes image of black people

JOEL Netshitenzhe is certainly one of the finest thinkers of our time.

In civilized societies the ideas of such luminaries are ignored generally by those who are complicit in destroying society.

Recently, Netshitenzhe sounded a very serious warning: “When public discourse is replete with cases of the abuse of state resources, shoddy responses to the injunctions of the public protector, patronage on a grand scale in stateowned enterprises and strange shenanigans in critical state agencies, the very legitimacy of the state is severely undermined.”

Netshitenzhe did not smoke this in a pipe; his observations were informed by what all honest South Africans can see – that our government has reached precipitous levels of illegitimacy.

If the were to focus on Jacob Zuma ’ s administration, nothing would reach the height of Nkandla as a monument of what Netshitenzhe calls “abuse of state resources ”.

The scourge of corruption is as ubiquitous as it has become almost a norm. When people at the top do it, those at the bottom jostle for the more dramatic.

The case of Lehlogonolo Masoga, the deputy speaker of the Limpopo legislature who has allegedly blown R125 000 watching pornography on an official cellphone, deserves the 2015 trophy.

Indeed, only naive people still believe that it is possible in South Africa for an honest entrepreneur to be awarded a government tender without paying kickbacks.

In municipalities it is widely known that if you are not politically connected the chances of getting employed are slim.

Qualifications don ’ t matter anymore. If you are politically connected and have no qualifications, you simply lie.

We have reached the point where even the concept of “political connectedness ” itself needs revision to incorporate genealogy as a defining part of it. Cases of children or blood relatives of politicians receiving state largesse are far too many.

Netshitenzhe points to another source of the government ’ s illegitimacy: “Shoddy responses to the injunctions of the public protector.”

Again, the monster of Nkandla rears its ugly head. Zuma ’ s evasive response to the findings and remedial actions prescribed by the public protector has set a dangerous precedent; that officials on the lower rungs of government need not take the public protector seriously.

What Zuma and his ilk might not realise is that, instead of emasculating the office of the public protector, “the very legitimacy of the state is severely undermined ”, to use Netshitenzhe ’ s words.

What Netshitenzhe calls “patronage on a grand scale in state-owned enterprises ” has reached monumental proportions.

A person like Ben Ngubane, who has failed to rescue the SABC from its perennial mess, has yet again been appointed acting chairman of the board of another crisis-crippled institution – Eskom.

From Zola Tsotsi, the man under whose misguidance Eskom ’ s credit rating dropped to junk status, to yet another colossal failure – Ngubane.

We ordinary South Africans must simply buy many candles and generators in preparation for more years without electricity. Clearly the people who run our state have lost their torch.

Netshitenzhe further points to “strange shenanigans in critical state agencies ”.

The shenanigans in the criminal justice system come to mind.

Recently this newspaper published a recorded conversation in which national police commissioner Riah Phiyega essentially confessed that she does not know what to do with the SAPS. Exasperated, she said that she and her senior colleagues are “cannibalising each other ”.

The infighting and suspensions in the Hawks and Independent Police Investigative Directorate can only inspire criminals to commit more crime, while those in the upper echelons of the SAPS are busy cannibalising each other.

The head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Mxolisi Nxasana, and his deputy Nomgcobo Jiba are also engaged in their own cannibalising spree.

Nxasana ’ s neck constantly anticipates the excruciating sensation of Zuma ’ s unfit-to-hold-office axe, while Jiba wags her tail as she bays for Nxasana ’ s blood.

Yet we are expected to believe the spin doctors who tell us that all is well in the state. South Africans are not fools; they can see that something is fundamentally wrong.

The problem is that the lootocracy (rule by looters) currently under way in the government diverts much-needed resources from the poor in society.

At a more strategic level, the mess in the state sends out the message that black people are incapable of running a modern state, the drivel apartheid racists elevated to the status of a theology.

The best way for black people to salvage their image would be to disown the lootocrats in government as an aberration, just as there are white people who disowned racism and apartheid.

In other words, we the black majority must behave in a way that will enable future historians when they write about Nkandla – never to use Zuma as an epitome of our race.

Otherwise, the collective image of black people shall forever be sullied by the avarice of a few.

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