HONEY MONEY

Written 20th December 2018

It is bewildering how so many could be so adept at acquiring wealth, assets and influence in their personal capacities, while simultaneously being so inept at keeping their enterprises and sectors afloat in the execution of their official responsibilities.

There is a flaw in the system, when leaders privy to strategic information on a daily basis automatically become first in line for lucrative BEE opportunities with top tier companies, simply because of the strings they can pull. There is a flaw when these same individuals are then allowed to remain tightlipped about their assets.

BEE has been a dismal failure. It has made a relatively small number of well connected previously disadvantaged individuals stinking rich, many of whom, in their wake have left chaos and carnage. Meanwhile further down the food chain, crime, desperation and drugs run rampant below the radar. And those supposed to be making a difference seem to care only when the media makes a noise - or at times like now, before an election.

This reality of politicians becoming stinking rich by virtue of state privilege is beyond me. Yes, they should be remunerated for their work, but like kings? I thought this was supposed to be a democracy? Okay, so the nation does vote for ‘leaders’ (love the term - pity so not true), but the whole political landscape is like a corny soap opera with ugly stars. The elections have simply become a mechanic for legitimising a feudal system.

Apart from one or two seemingly honourable individuals, all the politicians on the current political landscape seem to be cut from the same cloth. One year before elections, they start coming out of the woodwork... Free food parcels, clothes handouts, and layer upon layer of empty promises. Come the day after the election its back to kingdom games. The truth is our so called leaders do not administer on our behalf, they rule over us. But according to all of them It is ...what’s the catch-phrase of the decade? ...State Capture!

Well the way I see it, not actually. State Capture would have been Athol and Ajay and their cronies dressed up like ninjas running around laying siege to the houses of parliament, ending eventually with Jacob, his face cut and bleeding, with only one or two of his faithful stalwarts of resistance lying bleeding beside him, crying out desperately, ‘Okay! Enough. We concede, the state is yours!’ And Ajay taking out a big fat cigar and saying, ‘I’m glad you eventually see it my way ‘n all. I win I win I win!!!’

...But that’s not how it happened, is it? Ajay raised a single eyebrow and some or other man (or woman) from the ministry miraculously appeared nearby, to fly his kite. Not State capture, simply State prostitution, and surely the pimps should be more to blame than the steamers?

But back to politicians and businessmen leveraging their offices for personal gain with impunity. The incredibly quantum levels of power within the three arms of government are not reasonable and do not reflect democratic governance. It certainly seems as though influences from African ways have seeped into the system - where the king owns all the land, has most of the money, owns most of the State’s assets, has the first choice of women, the best house, the best cars, and literally lives the life of a king, while the tribe continue on with their merry little lives of deprivation, accepting the system as the way things are and have always been.

This is a far cry from democracy - but we are not alone with our dilemma. What the world-over is experiencing as democracy is also a far cry from democracy, where at least theoretically, government is for the people by the people.

There does not seem to be one political party in our country or for that matter, in any other country either first world and other, where the government acts specifically and inclusively for the benefit of her people. Power and influence are the stars on a global stage where the players increasingly seem more keen to drink twelve-year-old Scotch and compare the size of their dicks, to actually getting down, identifying legitimate problems, finding the right people and the right plan, and doing something constructive to get their house and State in order. Hopefully things will change after the elections next year but sadly, I’m not holding my breath.