Business Day

Tell the truth

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SIR — In her speech in Parliament on Wednesday, Public Enterprise­s Minister Lynne Brown convinced me that she and I not only live in different countries, but in different realities. She attempted, much to the delight of her African National Congress (ANC) colleagues, to turn what is marginally short of a catastroph­e at Eskom into a triumphal march.

She crowed about Eskom taking units offline to maintain power stations to the correct standards. Could she please explain to the country why this is so exciting? What have they been doing for the past 20 years?

She correctly noted the achievemen­t in delivering electricit­y to millions of our countrymen who went without in the past but failed to explain why the ANC, having full knowledge of its promises to the electorate in 1994, has taken more than 20 years to deliver one functionin­g power station. Could this be due to placing unqualifie­d cadres in jobs they had no hope of doing successful­ly?

The country would be better served if the ANC, which she so clearly supports with irrational zeal, acknowledg­ed that it had made a mistake. Mistakes happen and if there is honest accountabi­lity they will be forgiven.

The population are not fools but she and her ilk continue to think that they are.

It would be refreshing if she broke with the party line and simply acknowledg­ed the truth. Peter Oosthuizen Knysna

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