Regarding the ongoing electrical power supply fiasco, when a party fails to act due to incompetence or incapacity this might be viewed as negligence. But when an authority such as the Cabinet fails to act in the face of repeated expert recommendations resulting in five to eight years of national power outages, then this becomes criminal negligence.

The damage to the national economy both directly and indirectly cannot go unpunished. President Thabo Mbeki and his cronies were so distracted trying to do damage control in respect of the arms deal, oil deals, the third cellular network deal, the presidential jet deal, Travelgate and so on that they never did the work for which they were being paid by taxpayers.

This country needs a new structure of governance whereby politicians out for jollies of their own are not able to destroy in a few years that which has taken decades and even centuries to construct.

Such a structure should be manned by experienced, professional career bureaucrats at all levels and across all sectors of service delivery with political careerists restricted to top-level, policy-making positions of limited duration.

RICHARD YOUNG
Rondebosch, Western Cape

Letter shortened.

With acknowledgement to Richard Young and The Witness.