Chop bloated workforce

One of the biggest problems facing our fledgling democracy is that our leaders, understanding the importance of job creation if they are to be reelected, have encouraged their underlings to hire far more employees than they need.

This has resulted in a company such as Eskom being unable to increase its capacity due, at least in part, to the R32.35bn it spends annually on its 48,000 employees (which is apparently at least 16,000 too many).

In addition, this huge wage bill impacts negatively on Eskom’s ability to repair its existing infrastructure, which opens the door to the frightening possibility that its capacity could shrink appreciably in the next few years.

Unfortunately, the unions have made it clear that they will bring the country to a standstill if the government tries to retrench any of these unneeded workers.

Consequently, our government would like us to believe that the wage bill at Eskom, SAA, the SABC and others is only a small part of the problem, and that the primary problem is corruption, a lack of competition or the inability to find the right CEO.

This is a bit like a surgeon arguing there is little point in amputating a gangrenous toe because the patient has cancer and might die anyway.

So we sink inexorably down the drain while President Cyril Ramaphosa agonises over taking a decision he almost certainly would not hesitate to take if the survival of one of his own companies was at stake.

One can only hope he will soon find the courage to stand up to the unions. A failure to do so could have tragic consequences.

Terence Grant Cape Town