Get out the vote to defeat the ANC’s criminal empire

The public protector’s office says 50 organs of state have ignored her rulings, presumably because they feel they are above the law.

This should send shivers down the spine of SA.

I can imagine most, if not all, of these unidentified organs of state are controlled and run by ANC cadres for whom party is more important than the welfare of SA.

What happens when these same organs of state start to ignore inconvenient rulings by the courts, and the police selectively choose who to protect and who to leave to their own devices? It is the road to anarchy.

The ANC is a criminal empire and is singularly responsible for the financial, managerial and abjectly corrupt position we South Africans find ourselves in.

The sooner the voting public realises this and votes the current government out of office and brings in some sort of broad coalition — maybe with the ANC in a minority position (hopefully a more honest and chastised version) — the better we all shall be.

We need a massive pre-election voter awareness campaign in which South Africans are instructed that it is their duty to themselves, their children and the country to vote — for whoever they choose, whatever their political persuasion — but they must vote.

If we get a massive voter turnout, we might just achieve the seemingly unachievable and kick out this corrupt ANC cabal and bring in real change.

Let South Africans toyi-toyi in our tens of millions and just get out there and vote.

Newspapers and all the other media must be at the forefront of a nonpartisan campaign to tell South Africans to get out on election day and vote.

Dr Peter C Baker, Parktown North

Party learns from past mistakes

If the testimony by Eskom chair Jabu Mabuza at the state capture commission is anything to go by, the government must recover losses in respect of the financial and operational deviations besetting Eskom.

The finance minister, Tito Mboweni, has put emphasis on the establishment of a new directorate with investigative and prosecutorial powers to deal with the habitual delinquency in the government and public institutions. Hopefully, the special police will steer clear of partisan politics in the fight against corruption.

However, it’s still not clear how the unbundling of Eskom into three components will deal with the efficiency and productivity of staff, including the skill deficit in all areas of the business.

Any retrenchments would undermine the undertaking of the jobs summit. The issue of the public service wage bill is rather contested and it should be left to the bargaining council, where it belongs.

The minister of public service & administration should put forward a restructuring framework to thoroughly deal with risks that could compromise service delivery, and introduce a tax dispensation for early retirement. Ignoring such issues might lead to state paralysis.

To govern is no walk in the park, but a mammoth task of transforming society — beyond winning easy votes through populist rhetoric.

The ANC has learnt from past mistakes, taking collective responsibility for the shortcomings. The renewal trajectory is drawn from those lessons, for continuity is vital for the ANC to cross the Rubicon.

Continuity gives good reason for a vote for the ANC.

Morgan Phaaha, Ekurhuleni

Privatisation has many benefits

Your leader, “Fiscal discipline vital to economic independence” (February 24), spuriously concludes: “The only comfort is that these monopolies are not simply transferred as a whole to the private sector.”

Economics 101 is clear: privatisation has proven to be of significant benefit to any economy; monopolies are frowned upon. Therefore, if an entity like Eskom is privatised, as, of course, it should be, shares in the entity would be made available to a large number of investors, such that it would be owned by thousands, if not tens of thousands. That’s as far from a monopoly as one gets.

The prime advantage of privatisation (as opposed to public ownership) is that the board of directors is responsible for their actions to the shareholders. If they fail to perform or if they engage in corrupt practices, they are voted out and replaced by others with superior competence and superior ethics.

The parallels are inescapable.

John Spira, Johannesburg

Try young killers as adults

This week, South Africans woke up to the story of the murder of 27-year-old Thoriso Themane by Capricorn High School pupils.

Every day, murder, rape and other heinous crimes are committed by youths below the age of 18. Why should they be accorded preferential treatment?

No matter how old one is, murder or rape are not crimes that are committed without the culprit putting thought into it.

A teenager who tortures and kills a human being or commits rape should not be treated as a child, and should not be allowed to get away with it. By letting them get away with it, we continue to encourage the rot eroding the world.

Juveniles should be tried as adults if the crimes they have committed are adult.

There should be no excuse. Youths who commit crimes are criminals and we should not let their age continue to allow them to be on our streets, living as our neighbours, and in many instances committing more crimes.

Sajida Timol, Durban