Spokesman spins loaded lies over deployed Cuban engineers

WHILE the Zondo commission rolls on revealing systemic corruption and the president tries to assure the nation that the ANC has turned over a new leaf, the lies and obfuscation continue unabated.

Instead of just coming out and admitting that the reason for bringing out the Cuban water engineers is to repay a debt for the Cuban help during the Struggle years, spokesman Sputnik Ratau from the Department of Water Affairs invents all manner of explanations and justifications. Mr Ratau’s justifications are simply fallacious, all lies. The engineers do not possess any skills that our local engineers possess. Cuba is not by any measure a world leader in water treatment and water technology.

On the contrary, in Cuba you are advised to drink bottled water and most of the tapped water may be treated but is certainly not potable.

Cuba enjoys a rainfall of about 1 320cm per annum and has nearly 100 days of rain every year – about double South Africa’s!

Still it struggles to supply potable water to its people.

R65 million is a very high price to pay for these dubious skills, which is frankly an insult to our local engineers, particularly those that are unemployed. This is just a variant of “cadre deployment”, and is certainly not employment of those with the requisite skills, which the president has promised is the new ANC policy.

When asked to justify this expense, Tito Mboweni, The Minister of Finance, admitted that it had something to do with the Battle of Cuito Cuanavalle in Angola in 1987, when under the leadership of the Cuban forces, the South African army was routed. The Cubans, Tito feels, “can create something out of very little”, and our engineers can certainly learn something from them. If however, this was true, why can’t Cuba provide potable water from the plentiful rain that they enjoy? BEN LEVITAS | Oranjezicht