Sowing suicidal seeds of revolution

DEAR SIR — I refer to your article “Minister suspends Glencore licence” (August 5).

I hear two theories about why the government is being so incredibly incompetent in so many directions all at once. One, expounded by Tony Leon, is that our government leadership is encased in a reinforced concrete bubble and has no remaining connection with reality.

The other is a conspiracy theory (usually to be avoided) that predicates that a small group of powerful and devious people in government are trying to cause the economy to fail because that will cause revolution, which they see as the only way to create the world they want.

I find it hard to waste any serious time on this latter idea but some events certainly give me a jolt. Here are two examples.

With our vital mining industry suffering setback after setback and likely to be forced to shed many jobs, Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi (pictured) suspends a mining licence. Not because there is a proven case against Glencore but because Mr Ramatlhodi may disagree with the owners taking actions that appear to be economically inevitable and are claimed to be entirely within the law and after lengthy negotiations.

When nearly every state-owned enterprise and too many government departments seem to be permanently in top-end turmoil, we see one shining exception: Denel.

In 2005, Denel was making heavy losses but has improved ever since, moving into profit in 2011 and improving every year since. It is now doing well and has exciting prospects. So what is the minister of public enterprises doing?

The Denel CEO and almost the entire board are being replaced by novices with no obvious experience or knowledge of the business and a chairman with a dubious history.

Such business madness seems to be so evidently destructive that the conspiracy theory gets new legs.

Do not even talk about the deliberate deterring of tourists, just when we need them most. Our official leaders are letting it all happen. Could that theory have merit? Roger Briggs Bedfordview