Former finance minister Tito Mboweni, freed from the shackles of office, has spoken out against the rats and mice eating away at the fabric of our municipalities and state-owned enterprises. Corruption is eating our inheritance. There is no good corruption.
“We need good leaders to rise in all spheres of our society,” Mboweni said. This is the closest any senior leader of the governing party has come to crossing our race Rubicon: demographic quotas. Surely, for the good to rise there must be open competition?
Analogies are not always helpful, but tennis is an appropriate parallel. Imagine a world where tennis players can only rise in their own ethnic sphere. We would have scores of different leagues. The tennis world would be discordant and unattractive. There would be no “top 10” players to incentivise the less experienced.
Yet that is what the ANC serves us. Come on, Mr Mboweni, you nearly said it: good leaders must rise from (not in) all spheres of society.
Willem Cronje
Cape Town
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