"I have a dream" - to become an African Leader

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Corruption and embezzlement are a way of life for African leaders. From South Africa to Egypt there is no country where corruption is not endemic.

In Equatorial Guinea where oil export has earned the country billions of dollars, the 600,000 people living in the country continue to live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to siphon the oil revenue with no accountability.

Nigeria, Gabon, Congo and Angola all of them Oil exporting countries are noted for high level of corruption among the ruling class. All four countries are ruled by a cabal of corrupt leaders and their associates who masquerade as the representative of the people: presidents, senators, MPs, ministers, government officials and the list go on and on... In fact, the type of government in all four countries can best be described as Kleptocracy.

In East Africa Kenya is ranked the most corrupt country in that region. Many MPs, ministers and their associates in that country stand accused of accepting bribes and allowing companies to do as they pleased.

Since oil was first discovered in Nigeria about 50 years ago, several billions of dollars have been realised from its but today the whole population continue to live in abject poverty and the country has nothing to show for it.

Between 2005 and 2007 several state governors and their immediate families were arrested by Scotlandyard in London on corruption and money laundering charges. Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa who had their 35 million dollar asset frozen by the English court.

Mr. Ibori earns about a thousand dollars a month but during his eight years as a state governor he managed to acquire wealth to the tune of $35m and was a key financial contributor to the campaign of the current Yar'Dua. He owns a private jet and lavish London home.

Another corrupt governor is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich state of Bayelsa who was also arrested in London for money laundering charges. Mr. Alamieyeseigha broke his bail conditions and evaded capture in Britain by dressing up as a woman. When Police conducted a search in his London home they discovered one million pounds worth of cash in his home.

In Ghana over four ministers and government appointed officials have been implicated in a corruption scandal involving the British bridge construction firm Mabey and Johnston.

In countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Zimbawe, Tunisia a Kleptocracy class of people have replaced anything democracy. In these countries very few people continue to remain in power and the people have no say in the way their country is governed or run.

According to the Africa Union (AU) around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by its leaders and civil servants.

Now think of this. What do you think will happen if instead of stealing the money and banking it in Switzerland, Monaco, France, Britain, Cayman Island and the rest as the governors in and the leaders in Africa have been doing, the money is invested in training teachers, doctors, engineers, invested in infrastructure-roads, telecommunication, harbours, hospitals, schools, research institutions? What do you think will happen if every school has library with the right kind of books that will enable students to get the knowledge and skills they need? What do you think will happen if the money is invested in generating electricity for those living in the villages, towns and cities?

What about if the money is used to build water treatment plants to supply the people with potable water?

What do you think will happen to standard of living if the money is invested in agriculture, build canals, irrigation facilities and storage facilities, buy tractors for farmers so they can produce to feed nations?

Are African leaders happy when every negative thing in the world is associated with their countries: poverty, wars, corruption, AIDS/HIV, illiteracy and starvation? Are they happy when children die of diseases that can be eradicated?

What effort are the leaders making to eradicate poverty apart from just stealing monies that could help develop the countries?

Why don't they use the money generated from the sale of oil, gold, diamond to invest in education, fast and efficient transportation systems that could help increase business activities, create jobs and raise the standard of living of their peoples? Is it because they do not care? Is it because they not know what development is about? Is it because their only aim of seeking power is to steal and mismanage what remains of their loot?

The whole of Africa South of the Sahara is rife with poverty. What makes the leaders in the continent to have a negative attitude towards development and poverty eradication but love to accept bribe and engage in corruption and embezzlement? When they travel to Europe, America, Korea and Canada don't they see the roads and the airports? When they visit their children in these countries don't they see the infrastructures that make it easier to do business and what prevents them from doing the same in their home countries?

What makes Yahyah Jammeh of Gambia an expert in killing journalists but not the slightest idea on how to end poverty in his poverty stricken country? What makes Nigeria Senators and Governors so corrupt as to even steal money meant for the development of their own country? What makes the Bongo family in Gabon so stubbornly corrupt? What makes Dos Santos and his cronies to fail to use the oil money to build schools and houses for the poor in that country? What makes Denis Sassou Nguesso so corrupt as to have 112 bank accounts in France alone? What makes them enemies of progress and development? Is it lack of patriotism or is plain selfishness? Is it a genetic problem or is lack of vision and foresight? Is our politics that breed nepotism, cronyism and blind patronage to blame? What makes the leaders in Africa not to think beyond corruption and embezzlement? Why do they always take away poverty eradication from the equation? Why do they substitute development with corruption? Why do they ignore investment in agriculture, sanitation, water, health, education, roads and energy? Why do they refuse to take advantage of solar technology to supply electricity to millions of people who live in rural areas? Do they get satisfaction in seeing millions die of hunger, if no then why do they steal the very money that could end the misery, hopelessness and desperation among the people?

What is Ghana's Professor Atta Mills doing to end poverty and raise the living standard in his relatively peaceful country?

Is something wrong with our leaders and do they suffer from some genetic deficiency that make them power drunk, corrupt but less interested in fighting to end diseases, wars, hunger, starvation and poverty? What makes Gaddafi so power drunk as to rule his country for 40 years? What makes Dos Santos, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Yoweri Museveni, Hosni Mubarak, Obiang Nguema, Robert Mugabe, Mamadou Tandja and their cohorts to be interested in power and financial benefits that go with the office that they occupy and not the building of institutions and economies that will make their countries and people to be recognised as civilised members of the world community of nations?

What makes African leaders to get it so wrong everyday, every week, every month and every year and every decade? What makes African leaders to have gotten it so wrong in every aspect of human endeavour? What makes it so hard for Nigeria and Ghanaian leaders to use their huge natural resources to build successful economies like those of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong? What makes it so difficult for Somalia and DR Congo leaders to end the wars that have devastated their countries and driven millions into poverty, starvation and death?

Why are the leaders in Africa only interested in exporting raw materials like cocoa beans, coffee, cotton and uncut diamond and gold and not process them to add value to them before export: a process that could create millions of jobs and fetch the countries billions of dollars?

Why do African leaders shun investment in science and technology and yet would want to use mobile phones, laptop computers and the latest sport utility vehicles?

What makes the leaders to avoid investment in education? Why do African leaders find it difficult to have economic and social policies that will make them self sufficient and less dependent on foreign aid?

Of the over fifteen countries in West Africa not a single one of them has efficient, modern train network or system, not even Nigeria the so called super power in West Africa. The situation in Central and East Africa is not different from the one in West Africa.

So what is wrong with the leaders at all? I mean what makes African leaders intellectually blind, morally bankrupt, and ethically diseased? Why are they so different from all the leaders in the world? Of the over 50 presidents and prime ministers in Africa not a single one of them has been able to build an economy comparable to that of Korea despite some of them staying in power for more than forty years.

Why do they fail to react against challenges such as HIV/AIDS, food shortages, malnutrition, hunger, homelessness, wars, climate change and the cancer of corruption? Are they all sleeping behind the wheel?

When will they wake up from their slumber to address the major challenges facing the continent? Africa, South of the Sahara is blessed with rich soil, rivers and lakes all ingredients needed to produce food yet the continent is starving why?

Why do they continue to fail in every aspect of human endeavour? Please don't blame colonialism because Korea, Malaysia and India were also colonised but they have shaken themselves off the shackles of colonialism.

When will Africa leaders ever shake themselves from the colonial mentality that makes them subservient? When will Africa leaders ever shake themselves from the colonial mentality that makes them to think that they cannot do anything without France and Britain? Will Africa leaders ever grow up, pull themselves together to end the one-sided relationship that allow French, British and American Companies to have control over the resources of their countries, destroy agricultural lands, pollute rivers and put millions of Africans at risk? When will Africa leaders dismantle the corruption and bribery infrastructures that allow multinational corporations to pay bribes and then rape and loot African countries of their resources? When will African leaders put the corrupt multinational corporations in the dock for the pollution, bribery that continue to fuel corruption and poverty throughout the continent? When will Africa leaders stop conniving with multinational corporations to steal from their countries and deposit their loots in the banks of their former colonial masters especially France, Britain and Spain?

Can't Ghana do with the huge gold, diamond and other mineral deposits without going begging in foreign countries for loans that have done the country no good? Can't African leaders find ways to raise revenue without incurring heavy debts that continue to be a yoke for all the people?

Will African leaders for once put on their thinking cap, build strong institutions, build infrastructures, develop local talents, local businesses, end poverty, wars, starvation, forge unity and stop depending on foreign aid, and allow democracy and rule of law to work?

5 October 2009

Culture and Heritage - African Style


Is this how Africa contributes to World Cultures, by killing a Bull bare handed, ripping out his tongue, gouging out his eyes and kicking and trampling him, while he is still alive? My GOD, no wonder some of these fools are obsessed with Muti Murders, for these fools, there is nothing better than killing something or "someone" in the most inhumane way possible, "TORTURE TILL DEAD MENTALITY". Now we know why White Farmers are being tortured before being killed, and why children and babies are being hacked up while still alive, for Muti. 

TIA "This is Africa" and this is how they define cultural heritage. Wonder how many Animals, Farmers, Children and Babies were killed in this manner during Heritage Day celebrated on 24 September 2009? This is a good reminder on what Heritage and Culture means to specific groups and individuals in this country and how many laws protect such barbaric practices with our diverse Constitution! In the same sense of this "reminder" I have to say, thumbs up for the Kenyan Animal Rights Organisation that is doing everything in their power to stop barbaric practices like these, not only in Kenya, but also around Africa. Somehow it is possible for Africans to come to terms with these inhumane practices and try and stop them. Wonder if our President (Jacob Zuma) will have the same to say about his Culture under the spotlight, being Zulu after all and we all know how savage they can be when clinging to their heritage and culture. 

A Kenyan-based Animal Rights organisation has called on the South African government to ban the bare handed killing of a bull that takes place each December as part of the First Fruits Ceremony at Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal.

The call, made by Josphat Ngonyo, Director of Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW), comes hot on the heels of ANAW’s triumph in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi in December 2008 when a bullfighting event was prevented from taking place because of the cruelty involved.

Regarded as a traditional sport in Kenya, the bullfighting event was organised by Target Africa as a tourist drawcard to highlight ‘the Obama Circuit’ in Kenya’s Western Province and was due to take place on Saturday 13th December 2008. However, ANAW appealed to the Press, government and police to stop the proposed fight on the grounds that:

• It would be inhumane and barbaric;

• It would discourage tourism;

• It would be a bad example for children and “mould them into becoming violent citizens”.
  

Within hours, the bulls were ushered back into trailers to be returned home.

“Bullfighting is illegal, inhumane, unethical and retrogressive,” said Mr Ngonyo. “It is a violation of Kenya’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. We will not sit back and watch as some commercially-minded individuals promote inhumane treatment of our animals.”

Now ANAW has appealed to all African governments to stop acts of animal cruelty practiced in the name of ‘culture’.

“A case in point,” said Mr Ngonyo, “is the killing of the bull at the Zulu nation’s First Fruits Festival in South Africa. “The cruelty meted out to these animals is barbaric, inhumane and retrogressive. It is conducted in the name of ‘culture’ but culture of this nature needs to be abandoned as swiftly as the culture of female circumcision.

“The mind boggles at the brutality involved in ripping out the bull’s tongue, gouging out his eyes, suffocating him with soil, causing excruciating pain to his genitals, and kicking and trampling him to his eventual death.

“This is not the face of Africa that will see us contributing to global discourse as competent and dignified participants.”

Compassion in World Farming (SA) calls on Minister of Culture to state whether the killing of the bull will be allowed to take place again in December 2009.

Issued by Compassion in World Farming (South Africa) as a member of the ANAW Network, PO Box 825, Somerset West 7129 Tel. 021 852 8160, email: avoice@yebo.co.za Websites: www.animal-voice.org and www.ciwf.org.

30 September 2009

Murder victim ‘made killers sandwiches’

TWO teenagers arrested for the murder of a 78-year-old librarian in Wittedrift, Plettenberg Bay, apparently stabbed her to death after she made them sandwiches.

Wittedrift Dutch Reformed Church pastor Chris du Preez said the two boys, aged 16 and 17, from the adjoining township of Green Valley, had frequently visited Johanna Blignault at her home, where she gave them food.

Police who found Blignault’s blood- soaked body outside her back door also found evidence suggesting she had made them sandwiches in her kitchen on Saturday afternoon. A bloody knife was found at the scene.

The boys were ordered to remain in custody when they appeared briefly in the Plettenberg Bay Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Police said their case was postponed to Tuesday next week for a bail application.

Evidence was also found to suggest Blignault had been raped, but police said a post-mortem would be conducted today to establish the facts.

The two suspects used R150 they allegedly took from her purse to buy alcohol and were drinking at the home they shared with the grandmother of one of the boys in Green Valley on Saturday night when police arrived to arrest them.

A DVD player was found with the two youths after police earlier found a radio and frozen chicken, also allegedly from Blignault’s home, in bushes outside the grandmother’s house.

Both youths had previous brushes with the law. One was out on bail and was to be sentenced yesterday on a charge of housebreaking, while the other was serving a suspended sentence for stealing a car.

Gansta Moves

"A 32-YEAR-OLD man was shot dead near Kwekwe’s Tavern in Kwazakhele on Monday night.

Police spokesman Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said Mbulelo “Peter” Mdaba, of New Brighton, was in his car when an unknown man fired several shots at him and sped away.

He died on the way to hospital. The motive is unknown. Police are investigating a murder case"

Source - The Herald Online

When you hear of such stories around South Africa, you have to wonder what the Ghetto is doing here. Is it because our Native Africans are influenced to become this way or are they just naturally "born to kill"? I have to say that they are born this way as a new study at the UCLA University shows that your IQ levels are inherited. So, if you can inherit your "smartness", surely you inherit your "nature" as well. 

Of all the reported crime around the world, how many stories do you see about a White man shooting another White man after an altercation at a pub in London, or a Bar in America or any place where majority populations consist of Europeans (Whites). However, now look at the stats of crime in the Ghetto's of America (majority Blacks) or places around the world where the majority consists out of Black populations. You will find that black people are more likely to become violent when intoxicated and in most cases they will resort to assault which leads to death. How many "drive by shootings" have you heard of in white suburbs, or gun shootings in white pubs, or "beat downs", aggravated assault, murder, prostitution, drug wars etc, and how many of these cases come from majority black suburbs or where majority blacks immigrate, move or stay? (Nearly all if not all)

You have to ask yourself, if the Blacks in South Africa are so violent and also form gangs etc, while they are still living in Townships, are they really influenced to become this way when they are too poor to afford luxuries (including TV, DVD's etc)? I posted an article about a black man stating that "criminals are not made, but born from ill societies" and that crime is not the result of poverty. With this in mind, personally I believe that these criminals are born this way and they are usually born form Black cultures or other cultures of colour, this is fact, just as most serial killers are White Males between the ages of 20-45. Most other crimes are committed by Black males between the ages of 18-35. 

Now, how many serial killers do you find these days and how many ordinary criminals are there. You do the math and then decide if they can be trusted or not to run a country of be future leaders?

F V De Wet

  

Black Empowerment

The rapid decline of South African Airways.

by Arthur Kemp

The South African government holds out its airline as a shining example of black empowerment, which carries the name and symbolism of the “new” South Africa far and wide. Indeed, for decades, South African Airways (SAA) was famous as one of the best airlines in the world, consistently winning industry awards for service. Its well-maintained aircraft were highly sought after on the used aircraft market, and the bravado of its pilots became legendary as they operated under increasingly difficult political constrictions, even being denied overflight rights over their own continent and flying “round the bulge” of Africa to Europe. Now SAA is no longer an industry leader, and its unraveling record is one of appalling service, serious crime, corruption, and graft — all driven by a reckless policy of racial preferences that has put incompetent people in positions of authority.

The new paint scheme cannot cover up …

When the new CEO Andre Viljoen took charge in 2001, he described the organization as “partially dysfunctional.” While this was mainly an attempt to shift the blame onto his predecessor, the American Coleman Andrews, the reality was that affirmative action had bitten deeply into the company. Mr. Viljoen stated that his first priority was to “drastically improve declining service,” a decline that has prompted repeated calls by big customers like Anglo-American to improve service, and has even seen South Africa’s national carrier lose the South African Rugby Football Union contract to a local airline owned by British Airways.

Pilots and Affirmative Action

SAA has been systematically replacing whites with black employees. This has included lowering the compulsory retirement age for pilots to 50 years, down from the industry standard of 60. This policy has been a major point of contention between SAA and its mainly-white pilots, who recognize it as an attempt to move whites out of the command chain as quickly as possible.

SAA has also deliberately established a policy of not hiring white pilot trainees if there are suitable non-white candidates. Pilots used to be trained in South Africa, but in 1994 — the year the African National Congress (ANC) took power — the company outsourced the training program to British Aerospace’s center in Australia. The theory was to put cadet pilots through their paces far from the seemingly ever-present possibility of “racism,” and produce a string of high-flying blacks.

Unfortunately, almost none of the black cadet pilots made it through the Australian training, and were sent home. This caused great unhappiness in SAA management which, in July 2002, decided to bring pilot training back to South Africa, where blacks might not fail tests in such great numbers. The few black pilots who made it through the course in Australia were appointed to senior posts, but suffered a serious setback in 2000, when seven — that is to say almost all of them — were arrested on charges of bribing their way through the Civil Aviation examination paper that put them at the controls of passenger jets. The pilots each paid approximately 7,000 Rand (US$ 650) to get a copy of the Airline Transport Pilots License examination paper before taking the test. Two non-white members of South Africa’s Civil Aviation Authority were also arrested along with the pilots. Two of the pilots were found guilty but fled the country before sentencing, and the rest were suspended. However when the cases of the remaining five came to court, the files had disappeared and the charges had to be dropped for lack of evidence. The parliamentary opposition tried to launch an investigation into this failure to prosecute, but that came to nothing. Today, many of the pilots are back flying for SAA.

Its unraveling record is one of appalling service, serious crime, corruption, and graft — all driven by a reckless policy of racial preferences.

One of the black pilots who vanished, Tanzanian-born Issaya Dominicus Nombo, was arrested in April 2002 by the FBI in New Jersey, after his name turned up on a list of pilots found in a cave used by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Although there was no evidence Mr. Nombo was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, he has since been held in America pending extradition. Interestingly, the 44-year-old Mr. Nombo had entered the USA on a student visa for pilot training, granted by the US Consulate in Johannesburg, even though the South African authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Cabin Attendants

By October 2002, the affirmative action program at SAA had ensured that 51 percent of all staff were black, with cabin attendants having the highest black complement at 64 percent. At one point, all cabin crew were fired under cover of a “restructuring” process, and had to reapply for their positions. This was an opportunity to shed another 500 white staff members by not reappointing them.

At the beginning of 2003, there were some 2,400 cabin crew at SAA, and the sudden increase in blacks has had what cynics would suggest were predictable results: Customer complaints have become legendary. One of SAA’s most prominent critics is an American, Vernon Six, from Austin, Texas, who experienced SAA at its worst.

Traveling SAA on his honeymoon, on November 14, 2001, flight #SA211, Mr. Six was subjected to the following:

SAA originally assigned Mr. Six and his bride to seats in different rows. When they asked for reseating at the ticket counter, the agent said, “Stop your complaining … after about ten years of marriage you will be begging for seats in different rows.”

The air conditioner that keeps the cabin cool on the ground broke down. When Mr. Six mentioned this to a SAA crew member, he says he was “rudely informed to ‘stop whinging’ as the air conditioner was broken and there was nothing she could do for us.” The toilet flooded the cabin and wet his socks, with what Mr. Six says was sewage. The seat in front of Mr. Six’s wife was completely broken and reclined well past the normal reclining position. She was unable even to eat her meal because the seat reclined completely into her lap.

On his return flight, November 27, 2001, flight #SA220, the toilets stopped working altogether. He says the captain urged everyone to “only use the restrooms in a dire emergency and let a flight attendant know when they needed flushing.” The flight attendants had to use drinking water to flush the toilets, so there was no coffee or tea. The television screen was jumping too much to watch the videos. When Mr. Six reported this to a flight attendant, he was told “I’m sorry, but this is just economy class.”

Mr. Six asked for compensation from SAA. When the company’s black corporate communications manager, Rich Mkondo, refused, Mr. Six set up a website called www.neverflysaa.com, a parody of SAA’s official website. Mr Six has since had over 6.5 million hits, and a regular e-mail list of some 81,000 people, all of them aggrieved customers of SAA. Many have sent in their own complaints to his website. Here is a small selection:

“The seats were in terrible condition; JHB to NY two of the four seats were torn (old tears with no sign of attempted repair) and filthy, NY to JHB (different aircraft) the seats were filthy and the armrest between two of the seats was broken, the top was broken off and you could see into the armrest with all the wiring plainly visible. After making a lot of noise about this they found some duct tape and taped it together, this broken armrest had obviously been broken for some time.”

The flight attendants had to use drinking water to flush the toilets, so there was no coffee or tea.

“The flight attendants did not speak fluent English (you’d think this would be a requirement on international flights) most times you had to say things three or four times before they knew what you were talking about (I am South African and English speaking), they were so busy talking to each other every time someone wanted something they had to get up and go to the galley themselves. They were definitely not presentable (neat and tidy in clothing and appearance).”

“I tried calling the SAA complaints line after been diverted and transferred from pillar to post I finally lost it and requested the manager — who is never there, left tons of messages — which as you can guess were never returned. So at that stage I vowed never to fly this crap ‘airline’ again.”

“I refuse to touch food on SAA. I’ve had food poisoning more than once. Luckily, very mild cases compared to a mate of mine who had to spend a Friday night in hospital after our return from Cape Town, getting his stomach pumped after trying some onboard cuisine.”

“I am an ex-employee of SAA and spent 28 years with the airline until I was forced into a severance package … [T]he airline mirrors the country and it is on a downhill slide. As one of your correspondents mentioned, pre-1990, the airline was magnificent, but then political pressure forced the employment of incompetent persons, and that says it all. I too, will NOT fly SAA ever again. Having been on the inside and aware of many things regarding flying crew and technical — NO WAY.”

“As a South African myself, I too have decided never to fly SAA again. There was once a time I was proud of our national carrier. That is definitely not the case any more. After countless bad experiences flying from London to Cape Town, I now will only fly BA or Virgin.”

And so on.

SAA tried to have Mr. Six’s site closed down, arguing that his domain name was so close to the company’s as to be confusing. The case went to arbitration, and Mr. Six won. On his web page he quotes his favorite passage from the arbitrator’s decision: “Respondent [Mr. Six] is correct: no reasonable man or Internet user would confuse flysaa.com and neverflysaa.com. The decisions cited by Complainant [SAA] are nonsensical.”

More ominously, Mr. Six and his wife received telephone death threats at their home — though only people who had access to SAA records would have had the number, since it was in his wife’s maiden name — and someone has tried to put his web page out of business by flooding it with hits. The attacks failed, and his web page continues.

Service complaints have had a drastic effect on SAA passenger loads, and demand for SAA’s privately-run domestic competitors is increasing. Recently the airline cut four flights a week to the US because of declining demand.

In one service lapse that made headlines, SAA twice in the space of two years abandoned the same 10-year old child left in its care as an unaccompanied minor on a domestic flight. According to black SAA spokesman Rich Mkhondo, the ticket officer to whom the child had been entrusted “forgot” about her.

The largely affirmative-action cabin crew commit many crimes. In just one incident, some 92 SAA cabin attendants were suspended on suspicion of bringing cocaine and other drugs into the country. Other crew members have been suspended for bribing roster schedulers to secure certain destinations, as part of drug smuggling operations.

Occasionally crime makes the newspapers. In April 2000, SAA announced it had uncovered “a nest of corruption among staff,” including charges of “male and female prostitution, money laundering, bribery and smuggling” during foreign stopovers.

Similo Sircharles Sali used to be one of SAA’s few black pilots. His career ended in August 2002, when he was arrested with five kilos of cocaine as he was preparing to fly from Cape Town to London. The South African Pilots Association chairman, John Harty, pointed out, “This is the first time in South African airline history that a pilot has been held for allegedly being in possession of drugs.”

SAA also suffers from extraordinarily high baggage theft rates, with the company having paid out more than R1 million ($92,800) in the first nine months of 2001 alone for claims on 3,108 stolen bags. Fifteen SAA employees were arrested during that same period, and another 54 were either dismissed or resigned when threatened with criminal charges for baggage theft.

There are other kinds of theft. One black vice president was found to have purchased a car for personal use on his SAA company credit card, while another had his house tiled on the company card. Shortly thereafter, SAA revoked the cards of all vice presidents.

… the fact that the old white-run SAA was a much better airline.

The height of effrontery came, however, when a previous head of the legal department — the Chief Council of SAA — had to ask the company to guarantee a home mortgage. No commercial bank would lend to him because of his miserable credit rating. He had failed to mention his string of financial indiscretions when he was made top lawyer at SAA, and no one in the increasingly affirmative-action personnel department had bothered to ask.

SAA recently had to pull the plug on an Internet venture based in New York after spending over R90 million ($8.35 million) to develop a website that would have let tourists arrange elaborate travel packages at the click of a button. The project had been approved by the board but collapsed when SAA asked the South African Reserve Bank for approval to establish the company in the United States. SAA claimed that the Minister of Public Enterprise, Jeff Radebe, had given the project the all-clear, but Mr. Radebe had either forgotten or had not been informed — either is possible — and reported as much to the Reserve Bank. The project then collapsed in a flurry of accusations and counter-accusations, leaving SAA out of pocket.

The airline’s incompetence extends into many areas. In one famous incident, a non-white South African diplomat, one Jerome Barnes, on his way to his posting at the South African embassy in London, got drunk on the overnight flight from Johannesburg, fondled a flight attendant and called one of the few remaining white pursers a “f***ing white bitch.” SAA, conscious that the vast majority of its South African clientele are whites, promptly announced that the offending diplomat was forever barred from flying SAA, and that his name was entered into SAA’s database of banned persons. Less than a week after the “banning,” a South African journalist breezed through SAA’s security system by buying a ticket in the diplomat’s name. The computers must not have been working that day.

The still largely white pilot contingent — of the 954 SAA pilots, only 28 were black in mid-2002 — has consistently battled management over personnel policies, and has brought the company to the verge of a strike more than once since 2000. The core of the pilots’ dispute with the company is their refusal to accept certain cost-cutting measures that, they say, are negligible compared to the enormous waste of what they call “underperforming management.” Everyone knows the color of “underperforming management,” but no one dares say so for fear of being called racist.

International aviation law requires airlines to make sure their passengers have visas for their destinations, but SAA pays huge fines to the American Immigration and Naturalization Service, because it cannot keep illegal immigrants off its flights. In just one month, December 2001, SAA paid more than R1 million ($93,000) in fines on 26 passengers (and, incredibly enough, one crew member) who were held in New York and Atlanta without visas. Of the 26, 19 were Nigerian, two South African, two British, one was posing as an American, and two were of unknown nationality.

The problem is exacerbated by a code sharing agreement with Nigerian Airways, according to which flights from Johannesburg stop off in Lagos before going on to New York, allowing many Nigerians a route into the US. Nigerian Airways, by the way, has one aircraft, but is banned from flying to Europe or the United States because it does not meet FAA safety regulations.

A particularly spectacular bungle had to do with the acquisition of new aircraft. Coleman Andrews, the American former CEO, ordered 21 new Boeings, but someone failed to transmit the correct specifications on avionics and cabin interiors to the suppliers. The result was a dramatic cost increase and a lengthy delay while the aircraft were refitted.

As if this were not enough, after Mr. Andrews left SAA, the company canceled its order for the Boeings — some had already been delivered — and placed a new order with Airbus in Europe. The Airbuses were reportedly cheaper than the Boeings, but considering the initial bungle on the interiors, the cancellation fees to Boeing, and the pilot and service retraining costs (till then, almost all of SAA’s fleet were Boeings) the cost of this series of misadventures must have been considerably greater than if the airline had stuck with Boeing.

There was another high-profile case of incompetence in 2000 that could have had very serious consequences. Failure to run a computer program resulted in replacement parts for SAA’s fleet of Boeing 737-200s being run for more than twice the specified service periods. Fortunately, the parts held up without serious malfunction.

In 2000, SAA also started offering the overwhelmingly white technical staff retirement packages to withdraw and make way for black technicians. Many whites accepted, particularly after the Australian airline, Qantas, and the Spanish airline, Iberian Air, heard about the offers and set up recruiting offices in Johannesburg. SAA was stripped of many of its most experienced repair and service personnel overnight.

The result has been predictable: SAA has suffered an increasing number of equipment failures. Fortunately none has yet caused a major disaster, but insiders say it is only a matter of time. Failures include navigation or communication equipment breakdowns, which are called “snags,” and are supposed to be fixed before an aircraft is flown. It is now common for SAA planes to fly even long hauls with significant “snag lists,” which have either not been repaired, or have been “repaired” but are still broken.

Engine failures attract the most public attention. In April 2001, a London flight had to be aborted twice in 12 hours because of engine malfunctions on takeoff. The faulty engine was removed, serviced by SAA Technical and put back — only to fail once again as the aircraft was attempting to take off.

In August 2002, two separate flights suffered engine failures on the same day, stranding nearly 600 passengers. According to inside sources, SAA has had more engine failures in the past two years than in the previous ten.

An American in Africa

In 1998, just four years after the ANC victory and the switch to black rule, SAA appointed an energetic American, Coleman Andrews, as CEO, and charged him with putting the airline back on the road to profitability. He came with 20 years experience as a management consultant at Bain and Co. succeeded in getting SAA into the black. However, he left SAA early, under a cloud, accused of making an excessive profit on his salary. In fact, his compensation was in line with airline CEOs worldwide, and under his contract, his forced early retirement required a substantial severance package. Mr. Andrews’s name was smeared by the South African media, but he did turn the airline around.

Coleman Andrews takes off in a plane stuffed with money.

Mr. Andrews appears to have had the classic experience of a white liberal in South Africa. When he first arrived, he may really have believed Africa was backward only because of “colonialism” or “the environment,” but by the time he left, he may have come to other conclusions.

Mr. Andrews was quoted as follows in a 2001 book about his tenure at SAA (Jetlag: SA Airways in the Andrews Era by Denis Beckett):

“When I flew to South Africa in January 1998, for my first round of interviews, I was met by Saki Macozoma [an executive at Transnet, SAA’s government-owned holding company] … I’ve been lucky enough to see some pretty exceptional political and business leaders up close, and meeting Saki, I thought, ‘this guy can hold his own on the world stage.’ I was very excited, and thought if this is what South Africa is like, it has places to go. When I was leaving, after a few days’ meeting many people, I wasn’t quite so sure anymore. When Saki saw me off, I said: ‘How many are there like you, executives in your mould?’ I suppose I meant ‘black’ and I think this is what he interpreted. He said ‘we’re thin.’ I wondered if that meant a thousand, a hundred. I still thought, with caliber like that, this place is worth giving a go. Now I know it meant three, or five.”

Mr. Andrews eventually came close to the real reason he was shown the door: “Management was under siege. Our IT department was a disaster. To fix it, I had to fire the guy in charge, an affirmative [action] guy (a non-white) who was completely out of his depth. Next I know hell has broken loose. How can I do this? Do I not know he is connected to important people? The end is that he gets severance pay. For screwing up, he gets two years’ salary.”

Andrews adds: “On the board, I had one guy whose only interest was: what proportion of our executives are black? There was constant pressure, it led to some disasters, personal disasters for people who should have been left to grow quietly in the middle ranks.”

Mr. Andrews’s real sin at SAA was that he tried to run the company like a business, whereas the government’s main interest was, and still is, ideological: that the airline be run as an example of “black empowerment.”

The much maligned Mr. Andrews seems to have spotted the problem right at the end but was powerless to do anything about it. He became another victim of the black political agenda, which is dragging what used to be a world-leading airline down to Third-World status, along with the rest of the country.

Mr. Andrews is almost a metaphor for whites as a group. They refuse to understand the significance of race until the damage is so great it cannot be repaired. Mr. Andrews had a majority-white country to return to — at least for now. What he saw in South Africa should be a lesson to him about what his own country will face if its population continues to change.

Arthur Kemp is a Rhodesian-born journalist and author.

Letter To The ANC Government

It has come to my attention that recently the white man / woman has been in the news and has been scrutinised for not lending a helping hand towards building the country, including some ministers stating that we whites face a revolution form the Black population if we don’t start complying with the Equity Policies of the ANC, namely BEE and AA. Not to mention that we are called racist by ANC Youth League members and leaders like Julius Malema who continue to negatively influence the youth of South Africa in constantly stating that the White man is racist and does not help the previous disadvantaged population (mostly blacks). Are only the Whites racist in this country and leaders like Julius Malema not?

I have to emphasize the fact that most of the working middle class and upper class are mostly white and that this part of the population are being made solely responsible for building the country though their taxes being spent on helping a “only receiving hand”, and not a mutual helping hand. Since 94, our hard earned money has been spent on a part of the population that has only been discriminating and scrutinizing us for being white and for the injustices of the past by a Government and Political Party that no longer exists, not to mention the current Government that forces the White companies to comply with blatant racist policies in where jobs and partnerships have to be granted to people based on the colour of their skin (according to the constitution, if a certain group / race is being priveleged based on skin colour, it’s racism). Why is this not the case when jobs are being presented / given / promised to a person being Black?

Why did the ANC Government, after 94, rather spent time, money and resources buying companies for these previously disadvantaged race groups of the past when they sold the oil reserves instead of promising free houses, free electricity and water etc. You see, if this plan was implemented, where companies being sold could have been purchased by the Government and then given to the majority population to develop, grow and employ fellow black people where they can contribute to the building of the country, we might have had a different situation today. Job creation, poverty elimination and development of previous disadvantaged people could have been a thing of the past today.

If you do the numbers (minimum), you will find the following:

• Around 1500 business being sold a year (estimated)
• If the ANC spend money purchasing these businesses over a period of 15 years  instead if building free houses you are looking at around 22 500 business.
• If you employ around 70 black people per business, 1.575 million jobs created.
• Tax an additional 1.575 million people (R500 minimum); you would have generated R787.5 million in taxes during 15 years. (Around R52.5 million per year).
• Those 1.575 million people would no longer require free housing, any free electricity or water, as they do now have employment in which they can support themselves saving the Government Billions of Rands each year.
• As part of the Business structure and policies as set out by the Government when applying for such a business, these new employers have to show constant growth (year on year) where Government can now supply these companies with Government contracts, thus empowering them to grow, develop and employ more and more previously disadvantaged people from the townships. Say that those businesses grow with 10 employees each year, those companies would have had 220 employees by now, bringing down unemployment figures and employing nearly 5 million people by now.
• Taking the growth of 5 million people, taxed R500 per month, you now have generated revenue of nearly R2.4 billion over a period of 15 years through sustainable development.

Above would then be eliminate BEE and AA, and thus bringing racial discrimination and racial conflict to an end, eliminate unemployment, and eliminate welfare and building a stronger economy and stable societies. Helping each other is the point of development in the country, but how is this accomplished when a minority group of people is the “sole” responsible party for the development of both themselves and the majority of the population? When you ask of a majority population to support a majority population, you get a welfare state where nothing grows into sustainable development. But when you support / help the majority to start helping and developing themselves and not just give them “free support”, you will find that development will take place and welfare will be a thing of the past or it will now be a majority of Tax payers who can support a minority on welfare and not the other way around.

But simply having the majority population be responsible for the development and growth of a majority population and then force those minorities to do it alone while they are forced to give away more and more of their businesses (BEE / AA) and properties (Land reform and RDP Houses) will never work, at one stage you will have to get the majority population involved in helping to build the country and not just make empty promises in order for them to keep voting for you party in the next election.

FV De Wet

Where Do Criminals Come From?

Below post is from one of my regular websites that I visit on a daily basis and for the record, this piece was written by a Black Man.

Read the part where he states where criminal come from: "Thugs, criminals, rapists, murderers are not born of poverty stricken backgrounds, they are born of a society of ills, a society of callousness"

With such a bold statement on how criminals are "made", I think it is safe to say that he is now pointing the finger at his own people (Blacks) and that using the excuse, poverty creates criminals NO LONGER APPLY. In essence, he now openly admits that his own race is to blame for crime and that criminals are born from "society ills"

If criminals are born from "ill societies" than all criminals come from these societies and therefore, blacks who make up most of the criminals in South Africa, are born criminals and it is because their societies are "ill". Well, I have waited a long time to here a Black man make such a bold statement about his own race.

Truth or just another excuse to justify a problem?

F V De Wet

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Fear is not freedom

By Sipho Mazibuko

As a recent victim of crime, though indirectly, I initially denied the statistics.

Some appeared as mere concoctions by those hell-bent on demoralising our society and undermining our hard-fought democracy. As with almost everything, we don’t believe … until it happens to you.

Hoodlums, criminals, thugs, rapists — all brings feelings of hatred, anger, and resentment for most of us, partly towards the criminals and partly towards those said to protect society, the police and the government.

Vigilantism is reminiscent of the old Wild West days, when communities did whatever it took to protect their loved ones and their property. This type of action luckily does not exist, neither in the West nor here in the South or anywhere else for that matter. This role has been relinquished to the government, as it should, as per the laws and Constitution of our country.

The state has rightfully proclaimed the role of safety and security as the situation deteriorates by the day. One of the government’s prime responsibilities should be the safety, security and health of its people. If this fundamental right is not upheld, then surely we as citizens should have the constitutional right to protect ourselves.

What is our prerogative as citizens when taking the law into your own hands is frowned upon as vigilantism? Is this the end of our world as we know it? A world where people drown in pools of their own of blood, where women are raped and killed, where you cannot walk down the street without fearing for your life. Black or white.

The fundamental right to life, freedom and security, as enshrined in the Bill of Rights, is disregarded by those masquerading as victims of poverty and whatever excuse they can think of.

Do we harbour criminals in the form of our brothers, uncles and fathers? If so then we are not only perpetuating crime but are the criminals themselves. Yet we sit back while voices play out in our heads that this is not how life was meant to be. How is this freedom when we are not free? When we constantly drive, walk, sleep and live in fear.

Thugs, criminals, rapists, murderers are not born of poverty stricken backgrounds, they are born of a society of ills, a society of callousness.

Indeed one can encourage or condone an exodus into a new form of exile, but when we run we take the fear with us.

Sipho Mazibuko is a financial officer and president of the Young Intellectuals Society

Apartheid Law (Act No 21 of 1923)

The Native (Black) Urban Areas Act No 21 of 1923 (commenced 14 June) divided South Africa into 'prescribed' (urban) and 'non-prescribed' (rural) areas, and strictly controlled the movement of Black males between the two. Each local authority was made responsible for the Blacks in its area and 'Native advisory boards' were set up to regulate the inflow of Black workers and to order the removal of 'surplus' Blacks (i.e. those not in employment).

Towns became almost exclusively white as a result – the only Blacks allowed to live in town were domestic workers.

Superseded by the Native (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act No 25 of 1945. Repealed by the Abolition of Influx Control Act No 68 of 1986." - Source (http://africanhistory.about.com)

Without thinking I am an open Racist, you have ask yourself if changing this law was such a good idea. You see, this law was made to keep Black males out of urban areas during certain times and keep them "at bay" if you will and you have to look at the current crime rates, and the ethnic group most likely to commit crime.

Well, for example, who is the ethnic group that over populates the jails in South Africa? This question is the only one needed to accurately determine which race is to blame for what is happening in South Africa today. You see, more than 80% of jail occupants are black, therefore it's save to say that they commit most of the crimes. Is this due to poverty though? The answer is, NO. It has never been in my nature / heritage or culture to commit violent crimes due to poverty, nor that of any one I know. Then again, you should ask yourself is they are influenced negatively to commit crime, again the answer is maybe. But they are not influenced by Whites to do so. (When someone I know had more money than me and could afford more things than I could, it never drove me commit crime, however it forced / motivated me to work harder for what I wanted in life. 

If White people did not influence them to commit crime, than who did. The answer, THE ANC. I say this because we have had a host of criminals claiming positions in parliament since 94, from people like Mandela through to people like Zuma, no matter how you argue this; they were criminals and threatened a peaceful 1st world country with COMMUNISM and acts of terrorism. I don't know of any Boer Leaders that committed genocide, abduction or killing of innocent people to win their freedom from the British Empire during the Anglo Boer War 1 & 2. In fact, it was the other way around where the oppressors (British Empire) killed around 300 000 Boer woman and Children in the concentration camps. Makes you wonder if the ANC is a friend or an Enemy of the Boer People. I think you know the answer.

Back to the point, during Apartheid and the law (Native (Black) Urban Areas Act No 21 of 1923), you have to ask how much crime was there back then and who the offenders were. I thing it's save to say that most crimes during apartheid was committed by Blacks. 

According to the government website (http://www.dcs.gov.za/WebStatistics/inmate-gen.aspx) see insert below, 28 910 Black prisoners are currently in Jail, compare that with the 2745 White prisoners in Jail. That's 26 165 more Black criminals than Whites, that's a 954% increase. So I think it's save to say that Blacks are 954% more likely to commit crime in SA and that is why I ask if above law would have helped with crime in SA today? Another thing to look at is the prison rate for Coloureds (131 097), there are 102 187 more coloured prisoners than Blacks, who form the majority population. Now ASK THE BIG QUESTION, WTF??? If that is true, we would not have overpopulated prisons in SA and crime would be a minimum as we all know colourdes make up only about 6% of the total population. It's save to say that our Government knows that Blacks commit more crime than any other race but refuse to publish the real stats or they are just so stupid that they cannot use a calculator. 

Races		Unsentenced	Sentenced	All Sentence Groups
Asian	Female	14	40	54
	Male	142	531	673
	All Genders	156	571	727
Black	Female	226	471	697
	Male	7619	20594	28213
	All Genders	7845	21065	28910
Coloured	Female	654	1834	2488
	Male	37546	91063	128609
	All Genders	38200	92897	131097
White	Female	65	261	326
	Male	479	1940	2419
	All Genders	544	2201	2745
All Races	All Genders	46745	116734	163479