The minister’s tirade against business is simply a ploy to deflect attention from South Africa’s real enemies — corruption, crime and incompetence
30 November 2023 - 04:00
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Minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. Picture: Freddy Mavunda
Christmas is a time of reflection — a time to be grateful for your blessings. So I want to thank minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni for reminding us a week ago about the “real enemies” of the state who want to collapse this government.
The business sector — small or big, formal or informal, which kept going during the pandemic and load-shedding, protecting livelihoods, creating jobs, paying taxes to support the state — is the real enemy.
We are asked to be pawns of manufactured anger about rand manipulation that happened 10 years ago. Why now? This is to deflect our attention from the real failures: those who emptied the coffers of Transnet, Eskom, SAA, Denel and the like. What about those who took Covid money and bought fancy cars? Not enemies, according to the minister.
Who, then, are the real enemies of this democracy? Not those who blessed this country with load-shedding. Not the violent and dangerous criminals who prey on the innocent.
Not those elected and appointed officials who are given the privilege to run municipalities but are destroying them, failing audit after audit while their jobs are secure. Service delivery is a phrase in the dictionary but a fiction in real life. Nothing is working but greed.
These do not give our dear minister in the presidency sleepless nights. It does not matter to the minister that businesses have to operate with no power for more than eight hours a day but still have to pay salaries. It does not matter to the minister that businesses have to fight extortion on their own, without government support.
Corruption, crime and incompetence have been normalised.
This Christmas I want to thank our dear leaders for reminding us to reread Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Nothing is working. It’s taken the ANC decades to rewrite the classic.
Dr Lucas Ntyintyane By e-mail
The FM welcomes concise letters from readers. They can be sent tofmmail@fm.co.za
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: Khumbudzo Ntshavheni’s Christmas cheer
The minister’s tirade against business is simply a ploy to deflect attention from South Africa’s real enemies — corruption, crime and incompetence
Christmas is a time of reflection — a time to be grateful for your blessings. So I want to thank minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni for reminding us a week ago about the “real enemies” of the state who want to collapse this government.
The business sector — small or big, formal or informal, which kept going during the pandemic and load-shedding, protecting livelihoods, creating jobs, paying taxes to support the state — is the real enemy.
We are asked to be pawns of manufactured anger about rand manipulation that happened 10 years ago. Why now? This is to deflect our attention from the real failures: those who emptied the coffers of Transnet, Eskom, SAA, Denel and the like. What about those who took Covid money and bought fancy cars? Not enemies, according to the minister.
Who, then, are the real enemies of this democracy? Not those who blessed this country with load-shedding. Not the violent and dangerous criminals who prey on the innocent.
Not those elected and appointed officials who are given the privilege to run municipalities but are destroying them, failing audit after audit while their jobs are secure. Service delivery is a phrase in the dictionary but a fiction in real life. Nothing is working but greed.
These do not give our dear minister in the presidency sleepless nights. It does not matter to the minister that businesses have to operate with no power for more than eight hours a day but still have to pay salaries. It does not matter to the minister that businesses have to fight extortion on their own, without government support.
Corruption, crime and incompetence have been normalised.
This Christmas I want to thank our dear leaders for reminding us to reread Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Nothing is working. It’s taken the ANC decades to rewrite the classic.
Dr Lucas Ntyintyane
By e-mail
The FM welcomes concise letters from readers. They can be sent to fmmail@fm.co.za
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EDITORIAL: Cheap shots against the banks damage the economy (what’s left of it)
SAM MKOKELI: Shooting from the mouth straight into the foot
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