LETTER: Toxic cocktail of ANC policies has destroyed Eskom

Deputy president David Mabuza’s pronouncement on the Eskom board’s dereliction in preventing load-shedding is paradoxical, highlighting the sheer ineptitude of this Zuma-lite administration.

The destruction of the once-celebrated utility was driven by two policies, both masterminded by the ANC: radical transformation, in which professional competence and common sense were set aside to appoint managers with neither the qualifications nor the experience to govern complex organisations; and a belief that state-owned enterprises could be used as unlimited ATMs, to enrich the party leadership and their surrogates.

This toxic cocktail of policies has created this unholy mess, and blaming the current board is nonsense. How does this maladroit bunch reverse this degeneration and take the steps to start growing the economy? US political economist John Galbraith said it best: “Politics is not the art of the possible, it consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

The senior leadership and the numerous factions that underpin the ANC now need to consider the excruciating truth: Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy are not the solutions but the problem.

It is time all of the political parties got together and agreed that the only way out of this political mess is to form a government of national unity, which should be given five years to turn the country around.

John Catsicas
Via e-mail