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Eskom, its lack of accountability and inability to just attain some bare semblance of order drives us towards grid collapse. Our infrastructure falls into ruin at the hands of criminal syndicates, the corrupt and the apathetic. South Africans live in a state of constant fear at the hand of criminals and gangsters — public and private sector.
This is not to mention continual ratings downgrades, negative economic growth and recession. And, most pressing, the fact that our government is cosying up to a war criminal at the expense of trade that puts food on the tables of countless South Africans.
SA is at the brink, and has been for quite a while. But we can still pull ourselves off the edge. All that is needed is for government to reverse course. The direction we’re heading in doesn’t work. That much is clear. We need new, sound policies to replace the socialist-lite, draconian regime that dominates.
Electricity and Eskom need to be privatised fully to introduce accountability to the sector. Infrastructure needs to be privatised as much as possible to incentivise protecting critical infrastructure rather than letting it fall into ruin.
Police must be reformed and work alongside an increasingly empowered private security industry to solve our apocalyptic crime rates. Labour and business regulations must be cut.
Racial quotas should be wiped off the face of the Earth, as they should have been after apartheid ended. And SA must choose its friends more wisely, aligning with our profitable trade partners and other less warlike nations rather than blatantly expansionist powers.
Things will get worse. But they can get better. We just need change.
Nicholas Woode-Smith Cape Town
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 Anonymous correspondence will not be published.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.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Not too late for reform
Peter Bruce is right on the money in most his recent column (“Be afraid. It’s going to get worse before it gets worse”, April 13). SA is on an almost inevitable path to complete ruin. But the key word is “almost”.
Eskom, its lack of accountability and inability to just attain some bare semblance of order drives us towards grid collapse. Our infrastructure falls into ruin at the hands of criminal syndicates, the corrupt and the apathetic. South Africans live in a state of constant fear at the hand of criminals and gangsters — public and private sector.
This is not to mention continual ratings downgrades, negative economic growth and recession. And, most pressing, the fact that our government is cosying up to a war criminal at the expense of trade that puts food on the tables of countless South Africans.
SA is at the brink, and has been for quite a while. But we can still pull ourselves off the edge. All that is needed is for government to reverse course. The direction we’re heading in doesn’t work. That much is clear. We need new, sound policies to replace the socialist-lite, draconian regime that dominates.
Electricity and Eskom need to be privatised fully to introduce accountability to the sector. Infrastructure needs to be privatised as much as possible to incentivise protecting critical infrastructure rather than letting it fall into ruin.
Police must be reformed and work alongside an increasingly empowered private security industry to solve our apocalyptic crime rates. Labour and business regulations must be cut.
Racial quotas should be wiped off the face of the Earth, as they should have been after apartheid ended. And SA must choose its friends more wisely, aligning with our profitable trade partners and other less warlike nations rather than blatantly expansionist powers.
Things will get worse. But they can get better. We just need change.
Nicholas Woode-Smith
Cape Town
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.
PETER BRUCE: Be afraid. It’s going to get worse before it gets worse
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