LETTER: Competence is the first order of business

Neva Makgetla churns out economically problematic columns week after week, with never a word in rebuttal (“Government needs to rethink trying to save dinosaurs”, April 9).

Asking whether the government should support industries in distress is only part of the question. The first question is whether the government has any business meddling. The second is, where it is a shareholder does it run the enterprise with any semblance of basic corporate governance?

In the first case the government’s own policies wrecked the sugar industry. The health promotion levy was a stake through its heart. The master plan was a bandage to stem the haemorrhaging.

The steel industry another. Our oil refining capability another. In the second case (take Eskom), the government has run the place like a spaza shop. The wrong people repeatedly put in charge, too many ministries with overlapping mandates, procurement rules that insert middlemen and drive costs and facilitate rent seeking...

Realising that competence in appointing people to manage (at all levels) a complicated technical business is always the first consideration. So sure, don’t support dinosaurs, but be honest in asking first whether daft policies and inappropriate fiddling aren’t the cause.

Martin Neethling
Via BusinessLIVE

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