Pay these public servants more
The statement about not wanting to overburden taxpayers, in Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi advertisements in the media over the weekend, was really irksome. These public notices were placed in reaction to protracted negotiations with public service unions.
As a taxpayer I have no issue in paying taxes so that teachers, nurses, social workers and police officers get remuneration commensurate with the demands endured in their jobs. All three professions are recognised as being highly stressful.
However, I do object to parliamentarians enjoying my hard-earned taxes. How many of them play a critical role in developing our young people? How many are willing to risk a needle-stick injury or confrontation with armed criminals?
Is it because these are noble professions that the expectation is that they need to make sacrifices? As far as I am concerned, these professions should be among the highest paid in the country. — Khatu Mithu, Wierda Park
Regarding the impending strike by government workers for a 12% increase of salary: clearly teachers taking home R4 000 per month is absolutely ridiculous and needs to be rectified. Granted, the government has to fund this increase, which should translate into either growing the economy and therefore the tax base or increasing taxation of the existing tax base. The former solution is obviously preferable, not in the least because it should create jobs, in theory.
But as an example, reportedly some hospitals have a 30% vacancy rate because of lack of skilled workers — people leaving the public sector, leaving the country. This of course places strain on the staff that stay — poor working conditions, poor pay, long hours, poor family life — which inevitably will lead to more people going in search of greener pastures. Furthermore, as these professions become less desirable, the better-quality people will inevitably select to enter professions that are more market related. A solution would be to eliminate free healthcare, but then the poor will suffer rather than government workers (although it could be argued that the two are synonymous).
Let us consider an interim solution.
Surely even if the adequate quality and quantity of staff do not exist, one should still budget for that eventuality? So let us assume that the government does budget for the full complement of staff. Instead of just leaving that money in limbo, surely it can pay existing staff this money as overtime? For some hospitals a 30% vacancy would translate into almost a 50% increase in salary. This is fair and reasonable because inevitably these people have to do just less than 50% more work to compensate for the 30% vacancy.
This will shift the equilibrium. It creates greater incentive to work at centres where staff are actually needed. It attracts people to the sub-specialities that have shortages and, most importantly, it makes public healthcare less unattractive. It will also shift the equilibrium with respect to moving to the private sector and overseas. This system should ensure the fairest distribution of available human resources. The reason it can only ever be an interim solution is that, inevitably, the hours and the work-to-pay ratio will still make it unattractive, but it does give those who have already selected their profession an option.
I have presented this as an example, but I am sure that it can be applied to other sectors. Let each mathematics teacher teach at three schools and pay them triple. We are talking about the survival of the collective versus the survival of the individual. Healthcare, education, sanitation, transport and so forth are all imperative to the survival of a society and therefore (over time) to the individual. But in the current situation it is to the immediate detriment of the individual. At present, it is absolutely ludicrous for anyone even to consider a career in teaching, social work or physiotherapy — except as an interim measure, or if they have married well or have pre-existing wealth. Doctors and nurses at least have a choice; they can work overseas and retire here. — Ryan Benjamin
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Please would you publish guidelines for the public to be able to recognise a deliberate ”go slow” protest being practised by a public servant? Make it very explanatory because I am sure skill will be needed to notice the difference! — JL Strydom, George Industria
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This is one of the reasons South African matric results dont improve. When teachers strike, what will the learners gain? What impact will this strike have on their results? Every year roundabout this time, it’s South African strike season. Should the government not compromise with the teachers early enough? — Malibongwe Bayanda Mdletshe, student
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Zille’s DA in crisis
Under Tony Leon’s leadership the Democratic Party sidelined liberals and brought in spooks who saw it as a potential second-string National Party without apartheid baggage.
In 1994, it lost half its electorate. Leon then played Dr Frankenstein, grabbing every necrotic fragment of the dying New National Party and fixed it to his dwarfish party. By 1999, the DP had overtaken the NNP — but the two parties together gained far fewer votes than in 1994. The parties had virtually fused by the 2000 municipal elections, when crisis erupted. The Jo’burg white right expected to win the Johannesburg metro, and left Cape Town to the old NNP.
In fact, Jo’burg repudiated the DA, while Cape Town embraced it. Leon then overruled the Cape Town party, kicked the mayor out and attempted to install Jo’burg cronies in his place. His willingness to pander to Jo’burg split the DA and handed the ANC the Western Cape and Cape Town on a platter.
The 2004 election confirmed the ANC’s control of the Cape, but hinted that it was vulnerable in Cape Town — vital because Leon’s friends in KwaZulu-Natal had alienated their Inkatha allies and lost hope of DA power and influence there. That year, the DA’s support plunged while the ANC’s rose, though only modestly, in Cape Town, largely because of racial infighting. However, Helen Zille assembled a coalition with racists and religious extremists, which gained a majority. Surprisingly for a DA leader, she was able to hold it together.
Leon’s departure leaves a party that is a shadow of the old National Party, with no indigenous policies and no stable constituency. It remains divided between the Western Cape, where the power is, Gauteng where the money is, and everywhere else, where nothing is. Elected because there was nobody else tolerable, Zille has little influence with the Jo’burgers, many of whom distrust her because of her liberalism (by DA standards) and because she is a woman.
She is taking over a party in crisis, which has run out of allies to absorb and faces a real danger that in 2009 its electoral base will stagnate or contract. It has grown only haltingly when the government faced socio-economic crisis; if the economy continues to boom, the ruling party will reap electoral rewards.
In that case, Zille will be a natural scapegoat, and the Jo’burgers, with the authority of big business, will stab her in the back. — Mathew Blatchford, University of Fort Hare
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I congratulate the DA on its election of Zille as new party leader. Her election is in line with our Constitution’s spirit on gender equality. And she is competent and politically strong, which will send shivers down the ANC’s spine — which other parties are unable to do. South Africa needs an effective opposition party; without it, our democracy will fall into the hands of one group of people. Reading her article (May 4), what worried me is that she agrees to a certain extent with the policies of the ANC. At this stage South Africa needs an opposition with its own policies. South Africans must know exactly what the official opposition stands for, and echoing the ANC will not help the DA grow. — Loyiso Phantshwa, Grahamstown
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Teachers on strike
Under Tony Leon’s leadership the Democratic Party sidelined liberals and brought in spooks who saw it as a potential second-string National Party without apartheid baggage.
In 1994, it lost half its electorate. Leon then played Dr Frankenstein, grabbing every necrotic fragment of the dying New National Party and fixed it to his dwarfish party. By 1999, the DP had overtaken the NNP — but the two parties together gained far fewer votes than in 1994. The parties had virtually fused by the 2000 municipal elections, when crisis erupted. The Jo’burg white right expected to win the Johannesburg metro, and left Cape Town to the old NNP.
In fact, Jo’burg repudiated the DA, while Cape Town embraced it. Leon then overruled the Cape Town party, kicked the mayor out and attempted to install Jo’burg cronies in his place. His willingness to pander to Jo’burg split the DA and handed the ANC the Western Cape and Cape Town on a platter.
The 2004 election confirmed the ANC’s control of the Cape, but hinted that it was vulnerable in Cape Town — vital because Leon’s friends in KwaZulu-Natal had alienated their Inkatha allies and lost hope of DA power and influence there.
That year, the DA’s support plunged while the ANC’s rose, though only modestly, in Cape Town, largely because of racial infighting. However, Helen Zille assembled a coalition with racists and religious extremists, which gained a majority. Surprisingly for a DA leader, she was able to hold it together.
Leon’s departure leaves a party that is a shadow of the old National Party, with no indigenous policies and no stable constituency. It remains divided between the Western Cape, where the power is, Gauteng where the money is, and everywhere else, where nothing is.
Elected because there was nobody else tolerable, Zille has little influence with the Jo’burgers, many of whom distrust her because of her liberalism (by DA standards) and because she is a woman.
She is taking over a party in crisis, which has run out of allies to absorb and faces a real danger that in 2009 its electoral base will stagnate or contract. It has grown only haltingly when the government faced socio-economic crisis; if the economy continues to boom, the ruling party will reap electoral rewards.
In that case, Zille will be a natural scapegoat, and the Jo’burgers, with the authority of big business, will stab her in the back. — Mathew Blatchford, University of Fort Hare
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Jesus was ‘a Jew of his age’
Drew Forrest’s highly partisan piece, ”Will the self-righteous inherit the earth?” is ill-informed.
Jesus predicted the end of the world as his hearers knew it, with other cataclysmic events like the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.
But in any case, the authors of the gospels surely knew that the world had not ended when Jesus died. The assumption that the evangelists uncomprehendingly incorporated predictions of Jesus about the immediate and catastrophic end of the universe reflects the typical modern Western assumption that ancient and non-Western peoples didn’t know what they were talking about.
The orthodox view is that whatever else Jesus was, he was fully human. It is, therefore, the orthodox position that Jesus was a ”Jew of his age”. Many theologians now tend to the view that Jesus’s human knowledge was restricted to that of a Jew of his day — while believing that divine providence had so located him in time and place as to enable him to construct a faithful revelation of God out of the narratives and images current among Jews of that time.
The one firm conclusion from 150 years of Bible studies is that we cannot separate Christ’s ”humanitarian values” from his claims to a unique insight into the mind of God.
The overwhelming majority of Christians would deplore any form of ”queer bashing”. I found the contributions of Robert de Neef and Eleanor Poulter embarrassing, but it is surely inappropriate to label writers of letters you have accepted for publication ”stridently bigoted” and ”puffed up with their own righteousness”. — Theo Simpson, assistant priest, Christ the King, Sophiatown
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Three times in Revelations, Jesus says, ”I am coming soon!” That was written almost 2 000 years ago. Thanks for the great article. — Julian van der Nat
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As a born-again Christian, I was slightly disappointed by Forrest’s article, ”Was Jesus the First Socialist?”Jesus was a far-greater revolutionary than most Western Churches care to admit; they seem intent on pressing home a gospel of prosperity and self-righteousness as opposed to humility and acceptance. — Philip Nurse
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I was astounded by the reactions to the M&G‘s religion edition.
Historians date the writings of the New Testament to between four and five decades after the death of Christ, at earliest. Was there a Christian literary ”lull” during these decades?
There is no evidence that Paul/Saul ever met Jesus. As to the exact identity of the other four gospel writers, there is no evidence that they ever existed.
What there is evidence of is that after Jesus’s death, his brother James — not of the Gospels — took over the leadership of Jesus’s Nasorean/Nazarene sect, which lived strictly according to Mosaic Law.
The fact is that Jesus/Yeshua was a Jew and lived accordingly. The Jesus of modern Christianity was created by Paul as a disingenuous way of starting his own religion and simultaneously usurping established doctrines to make his creation credible and appealing. — Jackie Selepe, Johannesburg
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Both sides are guilty
The recent statement by the Jewish Board of Deputies criticising the government’s invitation to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to visit our country has once again left me wondering about the intentions of this institution and those whom it purports to represent.
The board’s chair, Michael Bagraim, noted that the South African Jewish community viewed the invitation with unhappiness because of the ”racist ideology” of Hamas, which leads the Palestinian unity government.
In fact, the Israeli government’s response to the Palestinian crisis has been arrogantly racist, with its ”apartheid wall”, illegal occupations, incursions and many other atrocities.
I do not support Hamas’s negative actions, and they are guilty of many. But one should not throw stones when one lives in a glass house.Instead, the board should, for once, try to support the South African government and Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils in their endeavours to broker peace in the Middle East.
For once, the board should recognise that many people around the world are appalled by the innocents on both sides who have died, and continue to die, because of the racism, arrogance and blind stubbornness of both sides, who refuse to admit their faults and are unable to compromise. — Darren Sutcliffe, Johannesburg
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Kasrils has invited the mass-murdering terror gang, Hamas, to visit South Africa, on behalf of South Africa’s government. And he has condoned Hamas/PLO terror against the Israeli people by his statement that ”South Africans understand that repression begets resistance”.
Kasrils is clearly obsessed with a relentless hatred against Israel and her people, and makes common cause with those who butcher Jews.
More than half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel, as do many of their descendants. It would be a hideous twist of history for these, too, to perish in the flames of anti-Semitic hatred, as they would do if Israel was destroyed by forces of evil.
I swear to fight to my last breath for Israel as a sovereign Jewish state, and for its right to determine its own borders and to defend itself as it sees fit. And I will continue to condemn those who equate Israel’s self-defence with brutal Arab terror. — Gary Selikow, Johannesburg
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Grant claim was false
In your recent skills supplement (April 20), your reporter Matuma Letsoalo was determined to paint a gloomy picture of sector education and training authorities (Seta). His claim that as CEO of the chemical Seta (Chieta) in 2004/05 I withdrew discretionary grants is false.In that financial year the Chieta’s levy income was R141-million. In terms of the Act, 10% is spent on administration, 10% on discretionary grants and 80% on mandatory grants intended for training. The Chieta exceeded its target in paying out mandatory grants to stakeholders.
After providing for these obligations, the Chieta was left with R23-million. It could not, therefore, allocate the R162-million requested by stakeholders.
Requests do not constitute a contractual obligation; the Chieta was under no obligation to fund training through discretionary grants. Companies or service providers were never promised or awarded this funding before the board made awards of this kind in September last year.
No funding was withdrawn, and neither the Chieta management nor the board acted irresponsibly. A Seta may not budget for a deficit or a surplus, and if the Chieta had awarded the money it did not have, it would have transgressed the Public Finance Management Act.
The M&G should have recognised and praised the Seta for exercising good financial management. The Chieta has received an unqualified audit for the past five years. — Raymond Patel, CEO, Merseta
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Distortion
Mandla Nkomfe’s comments in the Polokwane Briefing series (May 4) misrepresent the historical perspectives of the ANC and the alliance on the motive forces of the national democratic revolution (NDR).
The ANC has consistently identified the working class as the motive force of the liberation struggle. This is because most oppressed Africans, and blacks in general, still fall within the working class. Reform mechanisms such as black empowerment and Gear are a means to an end and not an end in themselves.
Identifying black business as a motive force of the NDR falls squarely within Joel Netshitenzhe’s warning of a tendency to ”distort tactical manoeuvres as principled positions of the ANC”. — Walter Mothapo, Polokwane