Herewith your 2020 to-do list, Mr President
WITH 2019 gone by with many unfinished issues, South Africans are awaiting action in 2020, including action by the Hawks, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and, most importantly, by the SAPS for those implicated in the looting of government institutions highlighted in the Zondo Commission. This includes the VBS looters and the plunderers of Eskom, Transnet, SAA, the SABC and local councils.
No mercy should be shown to thieves of taxpayers’ money.
Other things on the wish list:
• To tackle the high crime rate by introducing new, stricter crime bills to bring crime to zero-tolerance levels and allow South Africa to be a safe country.
• To allocate more money for housing and to introduce improved service delivery.
• To create more industrial zones, with rebates as incentives to manufacturers to create jobs and to get Chinese companies to come to South Africa and manufacture items that SA is importing, such as solar panels.
• Bring back the death penalty for the top three crimes – murder, drug peddling and rape – as a start.
• Introduce waterproof system controls in state-owned enterprises and local councils. Let every tender be studied and be passed in Parliament. Also let mayors, together with municipal managers, study and be responsible for every tender.
• Examine, with a fine-tooth comb, the unemployment situation. Let businesses hire 18 to 22-year-olds as entries to the market in “willing-worker, willing-employer” agreements, with an introductory lower wage. Illegal immigrants are taking jobs and working for lower salaries.
• To market and uplift the mining sector as many jobs are being lost here.
• Last, let the government relook at and study new major projects to uplift the economy to what it was in 2010.
FAROUK SALOOJEE | Rustenburg