LETTER: Rather reallocate outrageous Spurs R1bn funding to Eskom

The proposed, but presidentially kiboshed, deal that would have put the words “Visit South Africa” on Tottenham Hotspur’s Premier League players’ sleeves for three years at a cost of just under R1bn (including an agent’s commission of R31m, conflict of interest notwithstanding) is proof positive of just how far the public administration in SA has strayed from implementing the constitution, its primary task (“Three SA Tourism board members resign with immediate effect”, February 4).

Under the constitution all public procurement is required to be fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective. The overpriced Spurs sponsorship deal, including its extortionate commission, cannot possibly tick any of these five boxes at a time when the lights are out for more hours per day than ever before; 55% of the population lives below the upper poverty datum line; and hunger, if not starvation, are stalking the children in our rural backwaters. Tragically, not because there is insufficient food in the land, but because our gormless government has not devised a means of getting the one-third of food that ends up in landfills into hungry bellies instead.

We in SA are meant to be all about respect for inherent human dignity, the promotion of equality and the enjoyment of the human rights guaranteed to all in the Bill of Rights. The pugnacious acting CEO of SA Tourism should look directly into the cameras and explain exactly how he thinks a country, as disabled as ours currently is, can spend an outrageous amount on a vanity project at a time when there is so much misery, joblessness and darkness in the land.

Rather reallocate this funding to Eskom to buy diesel for those idle generators. That could keep the energy supply going, so necessary for job creation and the concomitant economic activities that generate the taxes used to pay him a good salary to think clearly and constitutionally about his duties at SA Tourism.

Rwanda paid less for a sleeve of top-of-the-league Arsenal and got a negligible response.

Paul Hoffman, SC
Director, Accountability Now

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.