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By Logan Naidu*
I have a dream where:
• Our beautiful country regains the glory, spirit and hope we enjoyed under Tata Madiba.
• The values enshrined in our Constitution are upheld in both letter and spirit.
• We rededicate ourselves, both individually and collectively, to embrace the higher values of life such as:
o Giving and not taking
o Service and sacrifice.
o Working with no selfish motive.
o Increasing our circle of identification/love from oneself & family, to the community, country, humanity and finally all living beings. “Our families should be the centre, not the boundary, of our affection”. A Parthasarathy.
o Gratitude for the many blessings we enjoy, most of which we take for granted.
o Care and compassion.
o Duties and not rights should reign paramount. A society based on rights only (no duties, no responsibilities) perishes, whereas a society based on duties flourishes.
• President Zuma, who has 783 charges of corruption, racketeering, money laundering hanging over his head from before he was appointed to the position, be summarily recalled by the ANC’s NEC.
o This will be good for South Africa. We will reclaim some of the credibility and dignity we lost as a result of Zuma’s disastrous leadership from the day he assumed office.
o This will be really good for the ANC also. If Zuma is not recalled very soon, they will be sure to obtain below 50% of votes in the next election. Some may prefer he remains for this very reason.
o Most of Zuma’s ill-advised, inappropriate appointments made during his presidency be scrapped, including that of his friend Dudu Myeni at SAA and innumerable others.
o The subservient (to Zuma) current Public Protector’s appointment be reversed and another appointee, with the fierce independence and integrity of Thuli Madonsela, replace her.
o The Security Cluster ministers be summarily dismissed on the grounds of severe mental impairment, lack of judgment, incompetency and damaging the very security of our nation.
Logan Naidu
• Cyril Ramaphosa, or the highly respected Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan (the only Minister to initially defy Zuma’s dictates), be elected President of SA to replace Zuma.
• The Nuclear deal be scrapped forthwith, as we simply cannot afford this extravagant drain on our limited financial resources.
• We reclaim our rights as citizens and actively participate in all matters affecting us, including service delivery, allocation and use of public funds, functioning of government departments, etc.
• Corruption, nepotism, tenderpreneurship is non-existent.
• The spirit of service and sacrifice prevails at all levels, both government and business. There should be no room for those acting with ego and egocentric motives.
• All appointments, especially in key positions in Government, SOEs, Media, etc are based on merit, and merit alone.
o There is no further deployment of personnel who are not the best qualified for the job.
• We re-examine and look at ways of implementing the Van Zyl Slabbert commission’s proposal that we move away from a pure proportional representation list system to a mixture between proportional representation and direct constituency representation.
o There is currently zero accountability of elected government representatives to any constituency. Many Ministers, their lackeys and other public representatives act with impunity.
o Merit, qualifications and track records have ceased to be the primary criteria for nomination to a party list.
o The dominant faction within a party decides the list according to their likes and dislikes.
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu is accorded the recognition he deserves for his seminal role in South Africa’s transformation from an apartheid state to a democracy.
o Archbishop Tutu serves as the conscience of South Africa.
o The Arch rightly deserved to be the keynote speaker at Madiba’s funeral but the pettiness of the current president ensured he was sidelined.
o He needs to be part of the restructuring and recovery of our country.
• We significantly improve our Mathematics and Science results in schools and universities.
o South Africa currently languishes at or near the last of all countries surveyed.
o Due recognition be accorded to the important role teachers/educators play towards education. Special days and events should be held to do this (as done in India for example).
o The vast resources allocated to education be used most optimally.
• All citizens feel we have achieved not only political change but economic transformation also.
o We achieved one-person-one-vote in 1994, but the economy sadly remained as it was.
o The vast majority of our people still live in conditions prevalent during the apartheid years.
o Government, business, labour unions, sociologists, other educators and the large number of unemployed need to chart the way forward. Most workers are represented by unions but the vast numbers of unemployed have no representation.
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