Time is running out for South Africa

The clouds were hanging low over the skyscrapers in Manhattan as I ran to the United Nations building to cast my vote in South Africa's first democratic election. It was a joyous day for me and millions of people around the word and the honeymoon has begun.

In January 1995 I started working for a small wealth management company, specializing in retirement funds and we made a killing. Why? Because the inevitable rounds of re-distribution of wealth and opportunities have begun. Previously advantaged employees of any state or semi-state institution, or even where the business conducted by a private enterprise involved the government, were retrenched and re-employed on a contract basis for double their previous salary.

People with years of experience and post graduate degrees were replaced by people with no experience and a limited education. This "re-balancing" was inevitable because of the ridiculous situation created by the apartheid regime.

The one question I always asked my clients was "but is your replacement sustainable?" To me it seemed like the new government was building a house of cards. They were recklessly using the state funds and flood of new international financial aid to implement a socialist structure, making good on promises made to friends of the "struggle" and greasing the palms of strategic partners.

My clients always told me that what the government was doing amounted to "window dressing". They were working twice as hard under contract because they had to do the work as well as train the new "employee". What concerned me more was that my clients were all top management. They had to run departments which would have had a devastating effect on the economy, public services and productivity if they were to collapse.

Now, in 2014, 20 years after the joyous day, I can't open a newspaper, listen to the radio or watch the television without being told that another high ranking government official or even minister has been suspended for falsifying his or her CV. That somebody in a management position or a senior member of the ANC executive does not have the doctorate they claim to have. The courts have proven that people running our country have been involved in corruption. The arms deal worth Billions of Rands enriched many people close to or in the government. I shudder to think how much money our leaders are going to pocket for the latest Nuclear Power deal with Russia for Trillions of Rands! Our Public Protector seems to only have a knife in a gunfight.

So it is sad to see the end of the honeymoon. It is clear that just window-dressing will only get you 20 years of joy. Where the political will is not present, the champagne will run out and your guests will return to their own homes, not thinking twice about the mess they have left behind for the host to clean up.

The bottom line is that it is fine to have a president or minister who can't do the job, as long as they listen to their advisers who can! Things can turn around for SA, we just need the political will!