LETTER: Profit not all bad

Without profit as motive, no business can survive. If the SA government cannot embrace this simple concept, then there truly is no hope for any state-owned entity, nor the economy.

I understand that, at the ideological level, profit is anathema to 99% of our government ministers. Even those tasked with improving the performance of the economy, including trade & industry and public enterprises.

Once the government accepts that its role is not to manage businesses, and embraces the fact that its tax revenues are dependent on those who are better suited to managing businesses, primarily because they are not hindered by ideology, the sooner our economy starts working again.

How we can expect anything but wishful thinking from those tasked with stimulating the economy when these ministers are avowed communists, remains to be seen.

Sadly, the profit motive is seen as being inherently bad, an unnecessary evil responsible for all types of depravity and the cause of hardships galore. What is not recognised is that so many of those who slander profit are involved in the actual pilfering of state resources as if this was an acceptable form of tax-free enrichment.

Without a profit motive and associated logical and practical business plan, SAA will only fly again in our dreams.

Andrew Greathead
Port Elizabeth

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