Insistent on competent officials
THREE babies died in Bloemhof and we want to know why. Well, the simple answer is they died from a cholera-like infection, but it's the complicated truth that starts fights.
So, what is the complicated truth? First, the water supply was contaminated with bacteria usually found in faecal matter.
Chances are it got there because proper treatment of water wasn't done.
Chances are that happened because those in charge didn't know how to do their jobs and/or the equipment broke down.
If employees were incompetent, it's possible they were hired to satisfy racial quotas instead of competence and quality of workmanship standards. If the equipment broke down, it probably happened because nobody maintained it, which likely happened because the "big boys" didn't set up a proper maintenance budget – or as is more likely, they just stole the money.
If the local panjandrums didn't budget properly or stole the money, it's probably due to their being "deployed" there by the dominant political party, whose track record of encouraging, supporting and rewarding competence and integrity is abysmal. A case in point would be how Bheki Cele's fortunes have changed since he was fired as SAPS commissioner, and what happened to Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Trevor Manuel and Pravin Gordhan.
If the ANC put people in positions they were unfit for, that's because the party was allowed to do so by more than 60% of the electorate since 1994. If the voters did this even after it became clear neither the ANC nor its "deployees" could provide proper service to the population, then by this fairly simple logical analysis of the chain of events, it can be claimed those three babies died because the voters put the wrong party in power in their area again and again and again and again and again...
Indeed, Mandla Seleoane ("Using theories that suit a political argument", June 26), affirmative action didn't kill three babies and hospitalise many others, but the consequences of the ANC's implementation of AA, BBBEE, EE, and vindictive ousting of competent civil and municipal servants because they weren't black or black enough did.
Those consequences ultimately trace their origins to the ballot boxes and voters' "ANC or nothing" and "Africa for the Africans" mentality – as if the Khoi San, coloured and white people born in this country are Martians.
Nelson Mandela fought against white domination and against black domination. He fought and sacrificed for a South Africa in which people would be judged on their character and deeds, not race. Unfortunately for us, his efforts at uniting South Africans ended with his presidency, and were largely undone by increasingly anti-minority policies of the Mbeki and Zuma administrations, with their attendant rise in corruption, cronyism, nepotism and lethal incompetence.
Three babies died and that's horrible. But unless the majority of voters wake up and insist on competence as the only employment factor, there will be a lot more deaths coming.
M Negres, Port Elizabeth
