OPINION 7Daily Dispatch, M o n d a y, May 7, 2012
Failing ourc h i l d re nEVERY parent dreads the
years between childhoodand responsible adulthood,
when their children go out into theworld to play, study, work and ex-periment with their newfound free-dom and independence.
They are dangerous years whendrink, drugs and fast cars threatenthe lives of young people who needstill to find their own boundaries.
Education institutions once ac-cepted a role as “in loco parentis”,which implied a responsibility tocare for the children in their careas a parent would.
University residences monitoredthe comings and goings of young-sters living away from home forthe first time and enforced the val-ues of the absent parents.
Those rules suited a contextthat no longer exists and youngpeople are now expected to takefull responsibility for themselvesfrom a much younger age.
But as a society, we seem tohave failed to compensate for thewithdrawal of extended parentalcare either by making their worldsafe or by equipping young peopleto manage the freedom they have.
That was demonstrated in partby the findings of a unique surveyby the Saturday Dispatch, whichrevealed that while more than halfof the urban schoolchildren sur-veyed were sexually active, three-quarters of those who were didnot always practise safe sex.
The survey also showed up aperverse culture in some schoolsthat makes it more cool to be ateenage parent than it is to claimyour freedom years.
Earlier this year, 23-year-oldRhodes student Lelona Them-bakazi Fufu was murdered whiletravelling back to the campus forher graduation.
Today we report a second mur-der this year on WSU’s Mthathacampus. Bhekinkosi Nkaziya fromNikwe village in Bizana wasstabbed on Friday while walkingwith a girlfriend.
We cannot blame the govern-ment for failing our children in allthese different ways. The respon-sibility is our own as a societywhich seems no longer to respectchildren, students or life itself.
Perhaps these things would hap-pen less if there was less povertyand people could grow up believ-ing they would prosper.
Perhaps they would happen lessif police looked after their vehiclesbetter and thought it was their jobto be on the streets, making themsafe.
But those failings, too, are symp-toms of a society that has lost itsway, which lacks role models andwhich no longer values personalr e sp o n s i b i l i ty.
The answers are within us aspeople and society. We can beginby cherishing our children – eve nwhen that is hard to do.
policy and practice and the misuse ofcredit given to you, you won’t qualify for aloan. A bad municipal rating is a clearsignal to investors to stay well away. Andwhen that happens, the economy shrinks,employment drops and it becomes harderand harder to create new jobs.
With its short-term rating Buffalo Citydid by 2008 improve from the “We a k ”band (zaA2) to the “Ad e q u at e ” band(zaA1) but over the last four years hasdeclined from zaA1 to zaA1- and is now inserious danger of lapsing back to zaA2.
This, then, is the reality in Buffalo Citysome 18 years after democracy. How did ithappen? To answer that, one needs toturn to the policy of cadre deployment, amonster of the ANC’s creation, now run-ning wild in Buffalo City.
At the conclusion of the 2011 local gov-ernment elections, Buffalo City appointedZukiswa Ncitha as its executive mayor.This would bring the total number of may-ors in charge of the city in three years tofour – Zintle Peter, Sakhumzi Caga andZukisa Faku being the others.
Over the past five years the munici-pality has had six municipal managers,five of them in an acting position.
The chief financial officer position hasnow been unoccupied for over three years,again, with numerous acting officials ro-tating through it.
Following a history of poor financialmanagement, in particular a failure tospend the budget properly ahead of the2010 Word Cup and huge tender irreg-ularities, the municipality hired firstP r i c ewaterhouseCooper, and later Ernst &Young to conduct forensic audits. Theymade a range of findings against keymembers of the Buffalo City executive,
GARETH VANONSELEN
Cadre deployment just like atornado raging through BCM
OUR OPINION
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I T WAS recently reported that, sometwo months after the appointmenthad been made, the contract of Buf-
falo City municipal manager Andile Fanihad yet to be tabled before the legislature.
The appointment itself had seeminglybrought to an end more than three yearsof indecision about the position which,along with that of chief financial officer,had remained vacant.
It is true that for much of that timethere was an acting municipal manager inplace (Fani) but the temporary nature ofany such contract means one is not ableto plan long term, nor is the particularindividual able to operate in good faith, asthey have the sword of Damocles hoveringpermanently above their head.
No municipality can be expected tofunction properly without a municipalmanager and chief financial officer inplace for more than 1 000 days.
The effect of this, along with other gen-eral and widespread dysfunctionality,meant Buffalo City’s financial manage-ment went into a downward spiral.
In 2003/2004, the municipality manageda financially unqualified report, with justtwo non-material concerns raised by theAG. From that point on, there has been asteady decline. Three points of qualifica-tion in 2006/2007, four in 2007/2008, six in2008/2009, eight points on which the AG’sopinion was disclaimed in 2009/2010 and,last year, nine points so severe the AGissued an adverse finding.
Over those five years, its total pointshave gone from four to 12 and, in eachcase, each point become so critical theAG ’s 2010/2011 report included some 80paragraphs (each paragraph being a sub-point) and ran to 14 pages.
Buffalo City’s credit ratings have alsodeclined. Credit ratings are like the bank’sassessment of you when you apply for ahome loan. If you have a history of baddebt, poor financial management, dubious
including then mayor Zukisa Faku, whowas alleged to have interfered in the ap-pointment of contractors and bypassedsupply chain management protocols.
They set out in gory detail the massivematerial mismanagement of Buffalo Citya d m i n i st r at i o n .
To date the municipality has failed toproperly implement the recommendationscontained within the report.
But it was enough for Jacob Zuma todiscard Faku as mayoral candidate for the2011 local government elections and, witha new mayor, to confirm Andile Fani asmunicipal manager.
Prior to the election, Faku faced 12charges from the party, which, accordingto The Times, included undermining theANC by appointing a new municipalmanager “outside the ruling party’sdeployment procedures”. She and 22Buffalo City councillors were expelled.
More recently, the Daily Dispatch re-ported that Faku had made a “d r a m at i ccomeback”. Leading a group “hostile toPresident Jacob Zuma’s bid for a secondterm as ANC president” she was electedhead of the ANC’s new Buffalo City re-gion. The paper reported that this wouldno doubt “reopen debate about the con-troversial appointment of Andile Fani”.
That Fani’s appointment too was po-litical is evidenced by his selection. Morethan 30 other candidates were overlooked,most instantly dismissed for not havingthe necessary qualification – a certificatein municipal finance management – butnot so Fani, who is strongly supported bythe Zuma faction and the SACP in par-ticular. When he told the committee hehad taken the requisite course but not yetreceived his results, they did not disqual-ify him as they had done other candidates,instead twice delaying the interviews sohe might obtain his results. Later the Lo-cal Government Seta and the South AfricaQualifications Authority would not en-
dorse his certificate, effectively nullifyingit. He was appointed regardless.
Following the Ernest & Young report,Faku dismissed her mayoral committeeand six managers – the politicians re-portedly because they were mobilisingagainst her. But the extent to which suchpolitical and public positions were in thepast misused by cadres with a politicalagenda is well documented by the AG.
As a result of these problems and manyothers for the 2008/2009 financial year Buf-falo City underspent its capital budget byR318-million or 46%. By the time an actingmunicipal manager took over in 2010, itwas spending just 18%. In his adverseopinion for 2010/2011, the AG found themunicipality could not properly accountfor some R2-billion. The inability to investproperly in infrastructure had led to abacklog so acute that in 2009 the mu-nicipality lost 53% of all water distributedand suffered electricity losses of R104m(13% of the total) – both primary sourcesof income for the metro.
These were service delivery problemson the grandest scale.
The minute you elevate political loyaltyto a formal policy, as cadre deploymentdoes, and seek then to extend it not just topolitical appointments but the public ser-vice too, you have not only violated theprinciples that define best democraticpractice, but created the potential for theperfect political storm.
Polokwane formed those condensedstorm clouds into a raging tornado thatnow rips through the country, and thedamage it causes is most evident in placeslike Buffalo City, where an entire publicadministration has been turned into a fo-cal point for the ANC’s political feuding.
Gareth van Onselen is the DA’s Director ofPolitical Analysis and Development. Thisis an edited version of a personal blogfrom www.inside-politics.org
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
D iscrimination on the basis oflanguage is against the demo-cratic principles of our consti-tution. A reader in the Dispatch
commenting on the language issue at Gonu-bie Primary School alluded to the fact thatformer Model C schools with a majority ofblack pupils have a white majority on theirschool governing bodies.
Why, I ask.I once attended a meeting at the school of
one of my sons and white parents con-stituted the majority in attendance, withonly yours truly and a couple of otherblack faces present. The same also hap-pened in other schools.
The fact is that we black parents do notfully participate in our children’s schoolactivities, let alone make ourselves ava i l -able to be part of various parents’ com-mittees formed to address specific and rel-evant issues. Let us not moan and complainabout this and other problems in schoolsand, instead, use our sheer numbers todominate the SGBs (school governing bod-ies) and change the status quo. — ZPSethuntsa, WSU, Mthatha
� HAVING recently had a re-look into theSouth African Schools Act and the Lan-guage in Education policy, I am convincedthat there has been a flawed stakeholder
consultation process in implementing theGonubie Primary language policy.
Given the numbers of black learners inthat school, it seems the policy formulationprocess was manipulated. Or that con-cerned stakeholders did not avail them-selves in numbers and thus opened theopportunity to skew the policy to disad-vantage the majority. When this stakehold-er consultation process as determined bythe constitution of South Africa is iden-tified as flawed, the department of edu-cation has the legal and moral obligation tointervene, given the way the policy is craft-ed: “The governing body of a public schoolmay determine the language policy in pub-lic schools.” It does not say that it must.
The Language in Education policy hassufficient safety valves to justify the in-tervention. If any evidence could be pro-duced that the consultation process wasflawed, naturally the Gonubie Primary lan-guage policy becomes invalid and withoutforce. — Mziwonke Qwesha, Gonubie
Why evil triumphsSOME people are not aware of the exis-tence of the Institute For Accountability InSouth Africa, (Ifaisa), one of whose pur-
poses is “. . . devoted to ensuring that therule of law is upheld and enforced for thegood of all by ensuring that governments,parastatals and the private sector are heldto account”.
One of the directors of this institute isAdvocate Paul Hoffman, SC, whose articleon the Glenister Challenge appeared in theDaily Dispatch’s “In Focus” on May 2. Ev-ery free-thinking South African who can,should log onto the website w w w . i f a i s a . o rg ,as the articles make interesting reading.There are two I feel need specific comment:
Accountability is a word/function thegovernment is wanting to make disappearthrough its introduction of the Protectionof State Information bill (PoSI bill).
The article titled “Much devilry still in
the detail” will dispel any illusions of whatis in store for us. We will rue the day thisdraconian bill ever becomes law.
The second article, “Mdluli – m u d dy,murky and mysterious”, contains an SAPinternal investigation document, referredto as the Hankel Report, relating to thenefarious goings on of Lieutenant-GeneralRichard Mdluli, the reinstated head ofCrime Intelligence and a man tipped as afuture commissioner of the SAP.
Besides being exactly the type of doc-ument you will never see again if the PoSIbill becomes law, it is scandalous that thisman had all charges against him with-drawn by the NPA and was then reinstatedinto his very senior position.
Did the NPA even read the report andhow could his police bosses ignore it?
These are the type of issues Ifaisa isbringing into the public domain for thegood of this country and its people. Neverin the last 18 years has there been a bettertime to remember: “The only thing neces-sary for evil to triumph is for good men todo nothing.” — Joe Barry, Bonza Bay
Guard our talentTHE phenomenal achievement of East Lon-
don-born singer Zahara in winning eightSamas makes us all very proud and is areminder of the many talented artists andsportsmen and women who hail from EC.
Sadly, our top achievers in sport, the artsand culture receive little, if any, financialand moral support from the province. Weshould be jealously guarding our home-grown talents and should not allow them tobe poached by other provinces because wedon’t have the necessary support, infra-structure and competitive edge. Cases inpoint are Matatiele-born soccer midfielderAndile Jali, who now plays for OrlandoPirates, Mthatha-born Akona Ndunganewho plays rugby for the Bulls, and his bro-ther, Odwa, who plays for the Sharks.
Our province receives plenty of bad pub-licity. But Zahara has placed us back on themap. — Pine Pienaar (MPL), via e-mail
Turn over a new leafSTART enjoying life and experience theexhilaration of making a few changes toattitude and lifestyle. Enjoy each day. Adoptan animal, go for a hike and breathe freshcountry air, laugh a lot, chat to older folk ortake them for coffee – generally improvethe fabric of life.
Always see the glass as half full, not halfempty. Lonely? Learn to make a cocktail ofyour choice and enjoy the sunset. Believeme, friends will roll up. — Thulani Mang-ona, via e-mail
Sky-high pricesYESTERDAY something puzzled me aboutour domestic airline airfares. A relative ofmine flew to Durban and the ticket costR410 for the flight and R325 for airporttaxes plus some other stuff – in total R910.How can they justify airport tax of R325and then Vat of 14% in accordance with thecountry’s tax laws? I think the Minister ofFinance should look at this practice. Nowonder the average person cannot afford tofly. — Burton Brown, Buffalo Flats
School language row: time for black parents to step up
M Y COLUMN last week dis-cussing the reintroduction ofoxpeckers to the Eastern Cape
and their ability to deal with ticks on wildand domestic animals, elicited a letter fromHans Moerdyk of Stutterheim.
He says that the mid and late 1960sbrought advancements in medicine andagrochemicals which had unintentionallydisastrous consequences on nature.
What man believes is good for himself,but which disturbs nature is rife – Ch i e l .
Hans says as a child he saw the largevulture population in the Magaliesbergaround Pretoria almost vanish. “Little didwe know then that prosperity enjoyed byusing more effective animal medication,specifically against tick-born diseases,would literally kill vultures in their thou-sands,” he writes. “We ought to know bet-ter that more potent tick dip is not aperfect solution to better tick control.
“My brother-in-law owned a farm in theOrichstad valley in Mpumalanga whereticks were a similar problem. He used tohunt down every Indian myna in sight.
“However, one year during a visit to hisfarm he told me he had stopped huntingmynas after seeing them picking ticks offstock like oxpeckers do. Apparently theyare related.”
Indeed. They are both members of thestarling family. It was news to me t h atmynas, the bully-birds that have takenover several big cities, do something asuseful as that. But it’s true. My RobertsB i rd s book says so – they perch on gameand domestic stock and remove parasites.
So to an extent, the almost universally“h at e d ” myna birds that have been in-troduced to a number of regions outsidetheir indigenous territories, do somethinggood. In fact, they were spread wide byfarmers who introduced them to theirlands, believing they would deal with in-sects and other pests among crops.
Australia suffers from that folly and my-nas have now been declared by the Inter-national Union for Conservation of Natureto be among the world’s 100 most invasivecreatures. Only three birds make that list– European starlings are there too.
At Ndumo Game Reserve in northernKwaZulu-Natal, where we were recently,there was a notice in the office reading:“Please report sightings of Indian mynasin the reserve so we can shoot the bas-tards” (or words to that effect).
The reason for such aggression by con-servationists is that mynas kill thenestlings of indigenous birds and t a keover their nest holes. In Australia, wood-peckers and parakeets are affected.
Turning to flowers, and a more positivenote, Erica Vos wrote to tell me about theblaze of pink wild flowers she and heraunt saw just south of the KeiskammaRiver cuttings while driving on the R72.Her photos are spectacular.
I asked Mary Cole of the Wild FlowerSociety what they might be. Their botan-ical name is Crinium campanulatum andt h ey ’re indigenous to the area around PortAlfred, Peddie, Grahamstown and RiebeekEast. They come up in shallow dams etcafter rain. They don’t seem to have a com-mon name though, Mary says.
Chiel today is Robin Ross-Thompson;ro b i n ro s s t @ g m a i l . c o m
THE CHIEL
Bully mynas amajor nuisance
May 7, 1962: JOHANNESBURG – A bigbaboon was removed to the Germiston gov-ernment mortuary on Saturday afternoonwith about ten bullet wounds after beingshot at by several policemen who had at firsttried to recapture it in a chase from thecentral part of the city to the old location.
The baboon, belonging to Mr CJ Schutte,snapped its chain and made its way throughthe streets, followed by many people anddogs. It killed a dog and scattered whitesand Natives in all directions.
May 7, 1982: PRETORIA – The food pricespiral triggered by the alarming 15.9 per-cent increase in the maize price has start-ed.
Before the end of the month the prices ofbutter, cheese, fresh milk, eggs and poultrywill rise.
FROM OUR FILES
ZAHARA
