Letters to the editor, September 15

Outrageous fees for water board members

While water, a scarce and precious resource barely affordable by the poor and unemployed, water board members throughout the country are claiming outrageous and scandalous fees.

In the case of uMngeni-uThukela Water Board, Chair Khuzwayo earned R1.5 million for attending 14 meetings during the period, thus amounting to over R100 000 per meeting; Precious Sibiya, Chair of Trans­Caledon Tunnel Agency received R1.2m for 10 meetings; Chair of Lepelle’s Northern Water, Dr Mphephu pocketed over R1m for 10 meetings with a R139 000 travel bill. Magalies Waters Keneilwe Sebego’s earned R920 000 for 13 meetings with a R67 000 travel and accommodation bill; and Amatola Waters’ Pam Yako was paid R920 000 for 21 meetings with R70 000 spent on travel and accommodation.

The Umgeni, Lepelle and the Amatola water entities are subject to corruption probes by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU). A related outrage is the cost of attendance of conferences by Board members.

It is not known how many members attend the annual World Water Week Summit in Stockholm, Sweden. The Minister should come clean on this and reveal to the nation the cost of this annual sojourn – numbers attended, travel and hotel expenses.

This blatant misuse of public resources must be exposed and brought to an end. The Department of Water and Sanitation argues that these payments are in line with the approved policies.

If so, such unjust policies not in the interest of the country must be changedIn a similar vein, a Sunday newspaper reported on August 31, “all aboard the gravy plane to New York”. In this case, “South Africa’s top social worker, Sizakele Magangoe blew more than R1m on a trip to New York at taxpayers expense, staying at one of Manhatten’s priciest hotels for more than two weeks and spending almost R200 000 on her flight”.

She also clocked up R419 000 in transfers and R40 000 in travel and subsistence claims. The delegation of 82 strong attended the 69th from March 11 to 22. The total bill allegedly came up to R3m. Surely a carefully chosen representative delegation of no more than 5-10 from Government, Civil Society labour and business, travelling economy class and booking into modest affordable hotels would have cost a fraction of R3m.

Speaking from a university perspective, participation in its council/board meetings is regarded as a public service. It should be a privilege and honour to be selected for this task. In return, attendees are covered for travel expenses, provided with lunches and teas and paid a modest honorarium, anywhere from R500 to several thousand rand per meeting.

In some cases, there is an upper limit as was the case when I was Chair of the DUT Council, so that this perk is not abused by convening unnecessary meetings. In a few universities, in fact no honorarium is paid. The operations of water entities are carried by the executive team and the purpose of boards is to overseer that operations are undertaken efficiently, frugally and ethically.

The expression for boards to keep “noses in and hands off” sums up their responsibility. The necessity for these large number of board meetings is also questionable. A culture has developed across boards in the country where membership of boards implies huge earnings in hundreds, if not millions as in the case of the water boards.

What does a typical board membership look like? There are several experts, eg., in the case of a water board or Eskom – these people may be retired, from universities or work in the private sector; in each of these categories these members are almost certainly earning sizeable salaries; there is no need to augment these with outrageous amounts from scarce resources of the public purse. Other members may have legal or financial expertise. There are several members who appointed for their general knowledge and who are held in high esteem for their wisdom, integrity and ethical decision making.

Much of this is often subsumed under the rubric of so called transformation. This over-used and abused term should imply a lot more that change in pigmentation. In whatever we do, our transformative actions should lead to a more, efficient, effective and less corrupt system. This should be at the core of the work of the National Dialogue which should courageously confront these outdated policies and practices, setting the stage for a more caring, just, equitable and compassionate society. | Jairam Reddy Berea

A Steve Biko inquest is long overdue

The first thought on my mind this morning is Steve Biko’s brutal death at the hands of the evil apartheid agencies.

Fifty years ago, Biko died in police custody, following his arrest on the 18th of August. Biko was arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act of 1967, which had been designed to facilitate the government’s fight against “terrorists”. In reality, the law was used to pursue and prosecute various organizations and individuals who resisted state control. Professor John Dugard put it most aptly in 1978, a year after the assassination of Biko, that: “Although designed to combat terrorism, the Terrorism Act has itself become an instrument of terror.”

People like Biko could’ve chosen to do nothing about the status quo. He could’ve decided that he had children to raise and a family to look after. He was a brilliant student, one of very few Blacks who were able to access an institution of higher learning. Biko could’ve chosen to be an “elite” Black and live in the relative material comfort that his education would’ve undoubtedly allowed him. But he chose differently. He made the ultimate human sacrifice for us.

I think we Black children must always remember this. Sometimes we get so comfortable with our upward mobility that we forget that it came at a huge price. We tend to forget that we’re able to be students not necessarily because we’re exceptional, but because we’re a few beneficiaries of sacrifices made by those who came before us. Without them, we’d probably be in jail cells with broken ribs and swollen eyes or locked in townships in shebeens. And that on its own ought to be the fuel that drives us to fashion a higher civilization for our people, the many whom we’ve left behind in the ghettos where we come from.

We must guard against forgetting. We must guard against leaving our people behind. There is no Black person who will ever be truly prosperous for as long as the Black nation itself is the wretched of the earth. And so ours is a struggle not only of breaking free from economic bondage, but of memory against forgetting.

May your soul Rest In Peace noble son. | K Himish Cape Town

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