Our loved ones are leaving for a very good reason

Barney Mthombothi’s article (Sunday Times, February 11) really struck a chord with me. It’s easier said than done to stay and fight when so many empty promises and excuses are made and nothing is done about rampant crime, unemployment, corruption and lawlessness.

I am one of many mothers heartbroken by loved ones who have emigrated abroad. With two teenage children, my daughter had no option.

She had a successful business employing 30 black staff who loved her. She had many black friends and neighbours who considered her family.

She loved Africa, embraced African culture and misses the country and people she left behind. It was heart-wrenching for her and her young family to leave behind everything they had built up over many years and start over again.

Thirty years into democracy South Africa should be a First World country; instead, it has no decent transport system, education standards have dropped and now NHI is being brought into law. There will be an exodus of many more young families who would dearly love to make a difference. But it’s a tough ask. For every year they delay, their children are being deprived of First World living.

Sheila Paterson, Selcourt

More than just apartheid

It seems the ANC believes the best thing it has done is “removing” apartheid. Anyone who lived in this country through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s knows that most apartheid laws were removed in the late 1970s.

In any case, anyone elected to a postapartheid government would be obliged to remove any vestiges of apartheid that may have still have existed.

Writing a new constitution itself (imperfect as it was) was an act of destroying apartheid. Being the government post-apartheid is not a matter of competing with apartheid, it is not about doing “better” than the apartheid regime.

A post-oppression government should take pride in building infrastructure, securing citizens’ safety and providing access to quality health care and education, which lead to economic growth and innovation.

Dr Kenosi Mosalakae, Houghton

Solidarity is not anti-Semitism

In her attack on Ronald Lamola, Wendy Kahn of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (Sunday Times, February 11) insists that anti-Semitism is rife in South Africa, but fails to provide any compelling evidence.

Honesty and integrity require the SAJBD to acknowledge that widespread solidarity for Palestine is an expression of utter disgust with the Netanyahu regime’s barbarism in Gaza.

A critique of Israel’s bloodbath in Palestine is exactly that — not antiSemitism.

A growing number of Jews who are vehemently opposed to the Israeli apartheid regime and its war crimes, and are an integral part of South Africa’s solidarity movements, would agree with Lamola’s dismissal of the allegations. Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network, Johannesburg

Austerity a harmful policy

Prof William Gumede is correct to highlight “toxic policies, corruption, incompetence and state failure” as the source of the dysfunction that is the South African experience (Sunday Times, February 11).

But there are two aspects that are inaccurate in his assessment: revenue and debt-servicing.

Contrary to orthodox thinking, a government that issues money by fiat is not reliant on tax revenue for its spending. Budget cuts at a time like this are simply making an awful situation worse, and unnecessarily so.

The “deficit” that ought to arise if government were to spend appropriately is necessary to reduce unemployment and permit private sector savings. In fact, revenue is lower because there is less spending. Therefore, even in the orthodoxy, there is space for the government to spend. Austerity is clearly a harmful policy, except for those who already have money and will benefit from interest payments.

The real problems with public finances are corruption and excessive spending on incompetence. Increasing the deficit in the current environment is essential. No loans are needed and there is extremely little likelihood of inflation when the economy is far from capacity.

Howard Pearce, Rondebosch

Putin’s nemesis is dead

Alexei Navalny is dead!

Going up against Vladimir Putin heralded the demise of this Russian politician. Putin’s stranglehold over Russia is like a python’s coil around its prey: powerful and deadly.

Navalny knew he was going to die — he was treated like dung by his jailers. Malnourished, his body succumbed.

Any Russian confronting against Putin is as good as dead. After this sad event, Russia will be further isolated, leaving clear-thinking human beings around the world with one thought: “How in God’s name can one man exert so much negative power over an entire country?” Peter Bachtis, Benoni

Chester not a mere puppet

The column Notes in the House (Sunday Times, February 11) included a picture of the electricity minister engaging with “a puppet”. In fact the popular and muchloved puppet is known as Chester Missing and his puppeteer is Conrad Koch. In my opinion an apology for this omission is in order. Michael Vermeer

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