Brendon

One thing I’ve learned since starting to write articles like this is that you can always find a relevant quote to support whatever it is you’re writing about.

Power, greed and pride – a toxic triumvirate driving decisions of bad leaders. Scratch the surface of a crisis and, predictably, individuals, groups or nations with toxic motives will be revealed. Typically, the origin of man-made crises is flawed leadership.

That’s how many times assassinated whistle-blower Babita Deokaran was shot just days after exposing suspected corruption to the tune of R850 million at Tembisa Hospital on Gauteng’s East Rand.

Recently, however, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review on the psychology behind unethical behaviour, highlighting that this isn’t the only question I should be asking.

Hey McKinsey, Apologies Mean Nothing When The Damage Is Already Done

At last year’s COP26 meeting, several European countries pledged the equivalent of R150 billion ($8.5 billion) to help Eskom out of its quagmire. This money is earmarked to help Eskom, one of South Africa’s biggest polluters, along with Sasol, shut down ageing power plants and migrate to renewable energy.

Imagine if democracy had brought freedom instead of corruption to South Africa.

Just in case you’ve been living on Mars for the past decade or so, and wondered about that dark patch at the bottom end of Africa, it is because Eskom continues to keep us in the dark, literally and figuratively. We really don’t know what to believe anymore!

The bad guys have fleeced billions in unpaid tax from the government. They now face the problem of what to do with all their ill-gotten gains. The only way they can spend it is to launder it into the legitimate banking system.

It’s been a decade since 34 miners were unceremoniously gunned down on a hill by Lonmin’s platinum mine near Rustenburg, in what has gone down in history as the “Marikana Massacre”.