Another crew member of South African Airways (SAA) has been arrested at Heathrow with cocaine in her hand luggage. In an earlier incident, a security guard and a cabin crew member have been arrested, also for drug possession.
One would expect that the management of SAA would have taken stern action in order to prevent a recurrence after the first incident. One would however be wrong. There is no management, and has not been any management for a significant length of time. What there is, instead of management, is cronyism, corruption and theft. You know - the usual kind of thing that one finds in a country whose next president is also himself being investigated on suspicion of corruption, and where senior officials are appointed not because they are honest or capable, but because they are not white.
The current CEO of SAA, Kaya Ngqula, is under suspension. Another affirmative action appointee, one of many who have been implicated in corruption, Ngqula is also under suspicion of corruption, having awarded a tender to a consortium which allegedly included Ngqula's wife. Under his so-called "leadership", the airline has lost billions of taxpayers' money, but Nqcula has continued to pay him and his so-called board of directors millions in bonuses.
And then South Africans wonder why the British authorities have slapped visa restrictions on South Africans visiting the UK. Are there any honest South Africans left? Will South Africa's voters punish the ruling party for the breakdown of morality, for its endemic corruption.
Of course not. This is Africa. There is no link in voters' minds between their power to vote and their ability to punish the corrupt. The one and only conclusion one can draw is that African voters do not see corruption as wrong. Like the SAA cabin crew member, the only difference between a corrupt South African and another one is that the latter has not had the opportunity. Yet.
Posts
