South Africa - a tragic decline?

Poor South Africa!

I cannot bear to watch or read the news anymore, all one ever reads about is the endemic corruption that has poisoned our land. Our President Jacob Zuma and his inner circle are always being featured in the news, where allegations of corruption are continually being raised against them.

If you were involved in companies like I have been, you would know the culture of the organisation is set by the Managing Director (CEO for the Americans). If the Boss works hard and sets a standard of excellence, his/her staff usually try to follow that example. Usually though the weaknesses of the Manager are more readily imitated. For example, at one stage in my life, I worked for my brother at his company. His weakness in sometimes following proper administrative procedures were copied by his staff, yet he started his daily work always about 5 am and then work until well after 6 pm, this side was not copied by his staff!

The reason why I am mentioning the above is to set out the fact that this culture of entitlement in politics has led to the most appalling decline of morals regarding honesty within the general communities of South Africa.

Three of my girls are at Pretoria University, a magnificent structure for tertiary education. You can imagine the costs (maybe you can't), Michele and I do everything we can to get them through varsity so they can be empowered and have a better life than their parents could. As parents we are willing to make any sacrifices required. Those of you who have kids I would imagine the same feelings exist in your hearts.

Now there are structures put in place by the government to assist any students that need financial assistance. It is a laudable objective. However, there is a terrible strain on the available resources, due to the huge numbers who believe that a university degree will magically transform their lives and they will be able to get high paying jobs in the government and large corporates. Most of these students are from desperately poor families; the loans, if obtained, can only cover a portion of their costs. Consequently some of these students have no accommodation and have to sleep in toilets or open parks as they battle to survive and succeed in their studies. I spoke about some of this previously on this steemit community in an article "https://steemit.com/politics/@fred703/why-violence-in-the-fees-must-fall-student-demonstrations-2016

One of the lending structures put in place is the Nsfas loans for students whose families earn less than R600 000 per year. We qualify to apply for these loans, so we applied again this year for our three girls and received funding for the older two but not the youngest, when we asked why we were told that they had run out of funding. So we were grateful for two loans and reluctantly understood why we wouldn't be able to get assistance for Kiera.

So as we struggle to keep them at varsity with some food, we saw an article regarding following:

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/with-r14m-she-should-have-built-me-a-house-20170903-2

So here we have a story where a young woman, 27 years old, Sibongile Mani, had a deposit of over R14 million put into her student loan account from Nsfas in June this year, instead of the usual R1400. In the three months before she was caught last week, she managed to spend over R800 000 where amongst other things, she bought Peruvian Wigs, i-phones for herself and her friends, designer clothes and hosted parties for her friends. She never even considered giving one cent to her poor granny who raised her from 6 years of age. The poor old woman is devastated, but yet her comment seems shows an inability to understand the ethics of her comment. Please go to the site and look at the poor old woman and what she has to live in.

Serious issues are now being investigated, and she needed police protection to protect her from furious fellow students.

At first when I heard this story, I also was angry, but then I reflected. Poverty is so destructive, when you and your children are starving, what would you do? How far would you go? More importantly what would I do?

Many in South Africa look down on this girl with anger, saying to themselves "TYPICAL, expected". No empathy, no understanding. The racial divide is still here, yet it is not only the poorer non-white communities who battle with morals, the more affluent should look inward, paying for personal goods and services through their own companies, staff who do not give fair value in labour, personal calls, etc. You know the list is endless, and I too, am not innocent in certain areas.

I know another student from a fairly affluent family who was also overpaid by this same body. She immediately refunded the money. I would like to believe it is the values she has adopted. What about me? If they overpaid one of my girls, would I be tempted to transfer it to the other child's loan? I hope I would resist the temptation, as I sit here I am pretty sure I would do the right thing. But! I am not in that situation.

I know another fellow who after paying for his groceries, when got to his car, he found some goods hanging on the side of his trolley that were not paid for, he immediately went back and paid for them, causing quite a furor with security. There are many who fall into this category whether rich or poor. But the "poorest of the poor"? What if stealing some food was the difference between life and death? I am not exaggerating at all for some people.

So Sibongile now sits with a loan of R818 000 that she must repay. She is a second year Accounting student, what of her future? I know when I did my honours in Accounting in 2015, that the standards are so strict when you write an exam, if one number, or one word, was found in our reference materials that we were allowed to take in , we would be kicked out of the exam and barred from becoming a Chartered Accountant.

**So what drives the moral fibre of a nation? **

Socialism? Can be dangerous to get the "dole mentality", there is the temptation to just take while doing nothing to improve one's circumstances. You know the analogy about the difference being given a fish for a day's food versus being given a rod and feeding yourself for the rest of your life.

Religion? (Not too sure about that one, one fellow that I know remarked, "if a business man proclaims his Christianity with a loud voice to me, I put my hand on my wallet, just to be safe"). A shame really as more should be expected.

Example of family members? I thing that one is a powerful influence. Many a story is shared by people who were impressed with one or other parent or sibling. The tragedy of Apartheid meant that many families were broken when the husbands/fathers had to travel from their homelands to work in the big mines in Gauteng. So many were raised in part families where the mothers struggled to feed, clothe and education their children with almost nothing.

Political Leaders? people like Mahatma Gandi, Nelson Mandela, could be good role models. These men are certainly admired by me.

what other areas could you think of?

Ultimately I believe the choice is an individual one to be made by each one of us. When I was younger I pompously stated "circumstances don't make you, they only expose what is inside". Maybe true, but empathetic? Definitely not.

So we in South Africa, live in an environment where opportunism is the catch phrase for many of our leaders, particulary in politics. Nelson Mandela would be saddened by what he would have seen from those who are supposedly carrying his legacy forward.