LETTER: The ANC is SA’s vanity project

In the 1990s in the UK, my husband’s ad agency got the contract to launch an iconic new tourist attraction. It was a major investment by a local man from an ordinary family who had emigrated to North America and made a considerable fortune.  Let’s call him Mr Big.  

At the first meeting my husband and his team were introduced to the attraction’s MD (who turned out to be Mr Big’s sister, a farmer’s wife); the operational director (Mr Big’s best friend from school, with no discernible career record); and the marketing director (Mr Big’s niece, straight out of college). 

And so it went on. All of their deputies were suitably qualified professionals. When he finally met Mr Big, my husband couldn’t help commenting, with just the merest hint of irony, that he was lucky to have such a talented pool of family and friends. Mr Big looked my husband full in the face and said: “This is a vanity project. I know I can make money faster than this lot can lose it.”

With small business, energy, water and so on being taken in-house by the presidency but ministers retaining their portfolios, it seems the ANC is SA’s vanity project, except the past few years have proved the country can’t make money faster than the ANC can lose it.

Maureen Murray
Cape Town

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