Aussie minister’s stance a breath of fresh air
WE ARE living in pragmatic times in which the practical value and consequences of beliefs and ideas are more important than their ideological origins.
For many, the basic approach to life and truth is that what works for you goes, as long as nobody gets hurt.
There are, of course, advantages to this approach.
Many a fruitful political compromise and well-run administration is based on it, and many a conflict was resolved by people choosing their battles and to not
Should we believe any KPMG report?
IT COMES as no surprise that a respected internationally acclaimed auditing firm KPMG has become a casualty in the Gupta/Zuma saga.
The trail of the Gupta/Zuma saga has now reached the UK where Bell went Potty and now KPMG/ Gupta made headlines in the Financial Times.
This then begs the question; auditing/advisory and PR firms sell two services – expertise and trust and this is based on the human capital invested in these institutions.
It is not the fancy brochures or websites but rather where individuals see these as trustworthy from all angles.
What happens when all or one is either diminished or compromised? What value is any KPMG report worth today?
In all of this, South Africa’s reputation has taken a serious hammering courtesy of one soonto-be, accused JG Zuma with 783 charges.
My gut feelIing is Zuma is no longer the sugar daddy of politics and these charges are coming back.
However, it seems strange that the likes of the Guptas and even vegetarian fast food owners selling medical school seats take South Africa as a spaza shop to pilfer and reckon South Africans are a bunch of commercially dumb, illiterate, backward fools.
Such people will learn the hard way about business in South Africa.
The solution is simple just as with Enron, Arthur Andersen and even the Hyundai executive sentenced to prison.
The auditing profession is harping on rotation of clients; so do you move from a trustworthy to an untrustworthy firm?
As for KPMG, such individuals should be charged by their regulatory body, given a hearing and finally stripped of their professional accreditation.
As for their firms these should be wound down and the competent employees will have no difficulty in finding better opportunities.
The sooner the better and South Africa’s image will not be a third world spaza shop/shisa nyama kleptocracy. MUHAMMAD OMAR Durban North
Sleepless nights over KPMG news
THE other night I dreamed a terrible dream in which I had phoned a firm of auditors: “KPMG at your service. Oh, good morning sir! You’d like us to audit your books?
“Certainly, sir, it will be our pleasure! We offer clients two levels of service, namely with integrity and without. You’d like to adopt the without integrity service? A very sensible choice if I might be permitted to say, sir! It allows for, shall we say, far more creativity. If you get my meaning! Very good, sir, our team will contact you shortly. Thank you for calling KPMG.”
I awoke in a cold sweat and then realised that it was all a terrible nightmare. Or was it? JOHN GARDENER
Howick fight all of them. However, when it comes to moral issues that touch the heart of who we are as humans, the pragmatic approach could fall short.
Sometimes we have no choice but to let principles prevail over pragmatism.
In such cases, we must accept that we cannot claim to respect the deeply felt beliefs of large groups of people, while at the same time pragmatically advocate and implement measures that go against such beliefs.
Especially when religious convictions
Media depicts half truths on Rohingya
AS IF the Rohingya crisis were not sufficiently disturbing, the Muslim world now inexplicably feels the need to lie about it in “Pallywood” fashion, much as one has seen with Palestinian propaganda photos and videos. The BBC Trending website is reporting that many images being shared online don’t show Rohingyas at all – but instead come from other disasters and news events.
Many of these images are graphic and disturbing. One of the photos, for instance, showing up in search results shows Buddhist monks standing among piles of body parts. On Facebook and Twitter, the photograph has been cited as an example of Buddhist violence against Rohingyas. But the picture is not from Burma at all – it was taken in the aftermath of an earthquake in China in April 2010. Another picture shows a man on fire running across a road.
One group that shared the photo on Facebook said the man suffered horrific abuse – that he was later chopped up and burnt alive. But the real story is much different. In fact, the photo is of a Tibetan activist who set himself on fire in Delhi in 2012 to protest against the Chinese president’s visit to India.
There are many disturbing pictures of children circulating as well. One shows a boy tied to a wooden pole, with the marks of beatings visible across his back. While online posts call him a Rohingya boy, he’s actually a 7-year-old Thai child who was beaten up by a relative for stealing sweets. But lies aside, much of what one sees in the media regarding the Rohingya crisis are are involved, we must accept that a wholesale liberal “taboo on taboos” does not do justice to genuinely held conservative convictions that have proven their value through the ages, but have now temporarily gone out of fashion.
Take same-sex marriages, for example.
Last week Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended a Victorian church that cancelled the wedding of a local couple after the bride-to-be posted support for same-sex marriage on her Facebook account. half-truths. I find this very annoying.
Shannon Ebrahim’s otherwise excellent piece “SA must stand up for the Rohingya” (September 15) is a case in point. Absolutely nowhere in her good article does she mention violent Rohingya attacks on Myanmar border posts in October 2016 and in August. And she inexplicably doesn’t reveal that these emanated from the Islamic “Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army”.
Lies and half-truths work initially and gain UN votes, but they are always self-defeating in the end. J AMALDEV Winklespruit
Electric cars are not the answer for SA
I GUESS petrol and diesel cars will have to go, eventually, because crude oil will ultimately run out, but will electric cars replace them?
The answer is “no” – at least not until electric cars have the same range as internal combustion cars and can be recharged within two minutes rather than 10 to 20 hours.
Yes, electric cars can be seen as good to drive in town, but in South Africa we often use our cars to drive long distances – and even if an electric car did have a range of 500km, it would still need to be recharged twice between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
That would add at least 20 hours to the total journey time.
What would happen in South Africa if we did all have electric cars and needed to recharge them every night?
Eskom can only just provide enough electricity at present – and millions of electric cars would almost certainly result in massive load-shedding.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to have electricity generators either, because these are mainly diesel or petrol powered and are incredibly noisy.
A number of governments are suggesting petrol and diesel cars should go because of pollution. But when it comes to pollution, surely the focus should be on trucks and buses, all of which have big, crudediesel engines and tend to put out loads of polluting exhaust smoke?
The fact is, the only cars that significantly pollute the atmosphere are those that are old or haven’t been properly serviced or maintained. These can be diesel- or petrol-fuelled cars and should be pulled off the road if they’re seen to be emitting exhaust smoke.
Those “anti-pollution” governments appear to be ignoring trucks and buses because they provide public transport for people and goods, and because there are no sug-
“Churches are entitled to marry or not marry whom they please,” he said. “That is part of religious freedom.”
The couple were to be married at the Presbyterian church of Ebenezer St John’s in Ballarat, but now have been told by the minister, Steven North, that he would no longer marry them or allow the ceremony to be held in the church.
He wrote, in a letter to them, that premarital counselling as well as sermons should have taught them that the couple’s commitment to same-sex marriage went against gestions yet with regard to alternative power sources.
For the record, I have a diesel Jaguar. I have never seen any smoke coming out of the exhaust or smelt anything. And on a long journey it has a range of more than 1 000km.
Until an electric car has the same capabilities, I will not consider buying one.
And when crude oil does run out, what will happen to the world’s aircraft and ships? All of them run on fuel and, so far, there has been no suggestion about any alternative.
Unless someone comes up with a replacement for jet engines, I guess we can say goodbye to all airliners.
And I guess we might have to say hello again to the big four-masted sailing ships that, for the most part, went out of service 100 years ago. JEREMY THORPE Parkhurst
What would Steve Biko think of SA?
WE’VE just commemorated 40 years since the death of one of Africa’s greatest thinkers, Steve Bantu Biko, at the hands of apartheid hooligans.
He was merely 30 when we were robbed of this universal thinker.
He had realised that the killer wound inflicted on blacks by colonisers and oppressors was to the mind. We need to reflect on how we’ve fared since his passing in developing the way we think and do things (culture) as Africans and how that impacts our lives and Africa’s status as an underdeveloped continent.
Did we get a fair deal out of the new political settlement (democracy)? Was it the only viable option?
Is our education system decolonised and effective? Are we winning the fight against poverty and inequality?
Do we need to spend more money on funerals, tombstones, cultural events (imisebenzi) than on education? Are the RDP houses (and yards) adequate for our often extended families? Do we spend more (money and time) on churches, religion and muti than other countries?
Do we want instant gratification rather than investing in the future? Do we eat healthy, balanced diets like our forefathers used to?
These and many more questions need to be raised. We need to look into our traditions (and Africa has many good ones, for example, ubuntu) and bolster the ones worth keeping and do away with nonsense. I wonder what Steve Bantu Biko would think. Just saying. PATRICK MPHUTHI Sandton the teachings of Jesus Christ and the church, and that he neither supported their views, nor did not care about the matter.
These moral skirmishes may seem like rearguard actions to many. However, North must be commended on his principled stand.
His is not a homophobic, but a principally biblical, conviction. He and his church are a breath of fresh air in a world addicted to pragmatism, often at the expense of principle and reason. ROBERT DE NEEF
Howick
Cars must display their licence plates
I FULLY agree with Marge Mitchell’s comments in The Mercury, September 15.
It’s all over the Durban area. I questioned a GTI owner, why no front plate? His answer was: the car looks cool and there’s a standard handshake (bribe) if stopped.
With these “average speed prosecution cameras” set on +-128km/h on the national roads, a truck with a speed limit of 80km/h will only be caught if it’s 48km/h over the limit and a minibus taxi with a 100km/h speed limit 28km/h over?
Instead of being parked at shopping malls, more useful times could be used charging the drivers who drive through an intersection after it’s turned red. CLIVE SYMONS Durban
Party factionalism a disaster in KZN
THE DA today calls on the collective ANC leadership in KwaZulu-Natal and the national executive committee (NEC) to end the systemic factionalism within the province and start putting the people first.
Our call follows recent events within the ANC which come as a result of two conflicting centres of power – a situation with all the ingredients necessary to throw this province into chaos.
Adding fuel to the fire is the recent court finding that the current ANC leadership is illegal, along with calls from former premier Senzo Mchunu’s camp for the current leadership under Sihle Zikalala to vacate their office – a move which has taken party divisions a step further as Zikalala’s camp ignore the ANC NEC while unilaterally announcing that an appeal will be lodged against the court finding.
This ongoing factionalism is a threat to the legislature and its responsibilities of governance and oversight.
We have already witnessed the indefinite postponement of legislature sittings and committees not sitting as a result of being inquorate. This is unacceptable.
These conditions in an already volatile province have the makings of a disaster waiting to happen.
The factionalism within the ANC diverts the party from its real mandate, namely to represent the people of this province and to ensure that they receive the services that they deserve. FRANCOIS RODGERS MPL Leader of the DA in the KZN
Legislature