Mbeki admits failure of Affirmative Action

Now this is interesting. 

After replacing whites with blacks in millions of jobs across the country, it seems that Thabo is having a rethink. Not surprising for anyone who has ever tried anything as simple as getting a new road tax disc or a passport in South Africa. But in an approach which is difficult not to interpret as racist, he is thinking of bringing in skilled replacements from outside the country. Remember that damned Yankee who ran SAA and took the country for a ride (no pun intended), when we could have had a South African as (if not more) skilled, more patriotic and a lot cheaper?

Opposition parties have strongly criticised the President's announcement that the government is considering bringing in skilled foreigners to help get South Africa's moribund municipalities up and running.

In separate statements on Monday, the African Christian Democratic Party, Freedom Front Plus and Democratic Alliance blamed affirmative-action policies (positive discrimination for my English friends, Africanisation for those who were around Africa in the 60's) for the lack of skills at local government level. All three parties pointed out that there are many suitably skilled and qualified people available locally.

What follows is quoted verbatim from the Mail and Guardian.

Free State ACDP leader Casper Nordier said it was unbelievable. Furthermore, adding more to the bill of the taxpayer by bringing in outsiders was unacceotable. He called affirmative action, which forced people with the know-how out of the system and, in the president's words often  resulted in "nepotism and favouritism" as irresponsible. While agreeing wikth the president that

"most municipalities have sunk so deep in the mud as a result of incompetence and corruption" that urgent intervention was needed, but said that South African  conditions differed vastly from those abroad, and that bringing in people from Cuba or Iran, would be unlikely to imrpove matters. The ACDP pointed out that there are many qualified people with experience in South Africa who could be available at a fraction of what it now costs to keep some incompetent municipal managers and other top earners "on board the gravy train", he said.

DA MP Willem Doman pointed out that in many ways the skills gap referred to by Mbeki was engineered by government itself, when they embarked on a campaign to 'transform' the state bureaucracy by forcing skilled managers into early retirement in order to meet the political objectives of the African National Congress government. He pointed out that hiring policies in the public sector had been overwhelmingly driven by political considerations, often at the expense of the ability to deliver on the basic tasks of municipal governance. He added that "Having caused the skills crisis, it is unfortunate that the government now finds itself searching for unconventional solutions,". He said that previous employees still had much to offer.


FF+ Gauteng leader Jaco Mulder said the fact that there are so few people with the necessary expertise at local government level "has a lot to do with affirmative action". He said he was "overwhelmed" by the number of calls he received from former town clerks, city planners and treasurers after it became known that Mbeki wants to recruit experts from abroad.  He said he was not sure whether President Mbeki was merely ill-informed, or whether he plainly does not have an understanding of the true nature of the affairs of local authorities. "It has now become time for the government to reconsider its draconian affirmative action policies. A new agreement about affirmative action should be negotiated," he said.

Briefing the media in Pretoria on Sunday after last week's Cabinet lekgotla (meeting), Mbeki said South Africa will have to import skilled people to execute the government's development plans at municipal level. He said that "There are very serious problems that are facing us with regard to capacity at local government level to implement these various programmes. He added that  "It does seem quite clear that we are not going to find the skilled people that we need immediately within South African society. They are not there." Because of this, the government was looking at "what we can do, particularly in light of the amended immigration regulations, to import the skilled labour as we work to train our own people to fill these posts.", Mbeki said.

 What a load of bull shit.  Thabo gets Inyoka's second  bullshit and hiss award of the day.

Source:   -   Mail and Guardian. |:| See also Municipal Debt - Mail and Guardian   |:|