SIGNFICANT MEN MAKE
DEMANDS ON THEMSELVES
Jesus has been named the most significant person in human history, followed by Napoleon and Shakespeare, as ruled by the internet.
Based on the impact on opinions certain individuals have had over time, and how that has reflected onto their Wikipedia pages, two computer scientists have come up with the ultimate list.
Professor Steven Skiena and Charles Ward use quantities analysis to rank more than a thousand historical figures and prominent people, from Elvis to Beethoven, Stalin and Queen Victoria.
(according to Wikipedia)
Algorithm based on impact on opinions over time - and Wikipedia
We would call Jesus "the most significant person ever",’ said Professor Skiena. With over two billion followers a full 2,000 years after his death, Jesus is an incredibly successful historical meme.’
And sometimes publication comes with controversy. The article below caused a bit of a stir because I used a source which turned out to be inaccurate. I had to eat humble pie but learned a valuable lesson.
Bryan Britton: Local Municipality deficiencies need ‘Einstein’ moment come August
This story has been updated with the right of reply of Charl Kocks of Ratings South Africa.
Mr Kocks writes: Ratings Afrika is misquoted in an extremely serious manner in the article by Mr Bryan Britton on BizNews 29 April 2016.
He states “The current ANC political leadership in control of the majority of municipalities has demonstrated over the last five years, and more, to not being capable of sound governance. This is the main cause of their low financial sustainability,” Ratings Afrika said.” The fact is that Ratings Afrika did NOT name a political party”.
With the local municipal elections set for 3 August, author Bryan Britton takes a look at their overall performance. He uses the Ratings Afrika’s Index, which evaluates the operating performance, management of liabilities, budget practices and liquidity position of municipalities, and scores each component out of 100. The numbers aren’t flattering, and the expectation is that service delivery and quality of living will deteriorate in South Africa over the short and medium term. – Stuart Lowman
By Bryan Britton*
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, German-born physicist (1879 – 1955)”
Ratings Afrika’s Index evaluates the operating performance, management of liabilities, budget practices and liquidity position of municipalities, and scores each component out of 100.
Of the 100 municipalities analysed by the group, 60 scored an average under 50% – 42 of which scored under 35%.
The country had an average score of only 43% – a position it has maintained over the past five years, indicating inadequate financial management practices and discipline, which the ratings group pins squarely on the ANC.
“The political leaders of the municipalities in South Africa, whose responsibility it is to govern, have failed in the majority of municipalities, as reflected by their weak financial sustainability,” the group said.
“The same thread is visible in many state-owned entities such as Eskom, SAA, Post Office and the SABC, where financial weakness is largely caused by weak financial governance on behalf of the political leaders and management in charge of these entities.”
“The sad reality is that this weak financial governance is also prevalent in Central Government, which is now threatened with sovereign rating downgrades by the world’s leading rating agencies,” Ratings Afrika said.
According to the report, of all South Africa’s major metros, the City of Cape Town is the most financially sustainable, with a score of 75%. This is followed by Buffalo City (Eastern Cape) with 73% and Ekurhuleni (Gauteng) at 70%.
Ironically, Tshwane and City of Johannesburg (Gauteng) are the worst-run metros, despite being the wealthiest – managing a score of only 24% and 37%, respectively
“This reflects severe deficiencies in their budgeting practices and financial discipline,” the group said.
SA provincial financial sustainability score (out of 100) – 5 year review
SA metros financial sustainability score (out of 100)
According to Ratings Afrika, the expectation is that service delivery and quality of living will deteriorate in the country over the short and medium term.
“The current political leadership in control of the majority of municipalities has demonstrated over the last five years, and more, to not being capable of sound governance. This is the main cause of their low financial sustainability,” Ratings Afrika said.
Mr Einstein please guide us in the upcoming Local Municipal Elections.
Right of reply: Charl Kocks of Ratings Afrika
Ratings Afrika is misquoted in an extremely serious manner in the article by Mr Bryan Britton on BizNews 29 April 2016.
He states:
“The current ANC political leadership in control of the majority of municipalities has demonstrated over the last five years, and more, to not being capable of sound governance. This is the main cause of their low financial sustainability,” Ratings Afrika said.” (My colouring and bolding added.)
The fact is that Ratings Afrika did NOT name a political party. This is because the party in control is NOT always the ANC; but more importantly, the sentence is to underscore that the politicisation of municipalities is (in a majority of cases) is now affecting their ability to act appropriately; and there are multiple facets to that statement.
We strive to remain apolitical in our analyses which are a critical factor of our business sustainability; and in one fell swoop Mr Britton and your news service has damaged this. I regard this to be extremely unfair and journalistically dishonest.
As Step One, please correct this very serious error very publicly; and please do so also at the level of Fin24 who lifted your article.
With great disappointment.
Kocks’ second email reads:
Thank you for what I regard as Step One, namely removing the letters ‘ANC’ from the quotation from our press release, both on BizNews and on Fin24.
As mentioned, what happened was not only wholly unacceptable (to put it mildly) but also hugely damaging in both reputational and business terms. Ratings Afrika must at all times act impartially, and be seen to act impartially; and especially in an area like municipal sustainability and service delivery, heightened by the fact that municipal elections are in the offing, needs to be respected as a non-partisan commentator and remain completely out of party politics. We have achieved this throughout since CA-Ratings first published its Assessments of Debt Governance for the municipalities almost 20 years ago, and we remain steadfast in this respect.
In this context, in order to settle this matter, we request most strongly that as Step Two you publish on BizNews and on Fin24 in a prominent manner (specifically, no less prominent than the manner wherein the article(s) appeared) and for no shorter period than the articles were carried, unambiguous wording that achieves the following:
1. Sets out the misleading quotation and the fact that Ratings Afrika at no time made such a statement or inference; and
We reserve all our rights in respect of this matter.
This is a storm in a tea cup. The main point of the story has been missed. Most of my opinions were formed on physical visits to the Municipalities representing Deloitte & Touche where I discovered a different set of circumstances. An extract from ‘Stepping Stones’ paints this picture:
Local Government
Our Government operates through three tiers of authority: Parliament, Provincial Government and Local Government. Some say that duplication of functions exists between the latter two tiers and that a less cumbersome organisation structure would eliminate duplication, make for faster lines of communication and result in more effective execution of priorities. All of this would certainly speed up the pace of service delivery.
Be that as it may, despite this bloated organisational structure, whose main collective priority is to provide services to communities, there has been an appalling lack of progress since 1994. At the behest of the National Executive, the provincial government implemented a crisis plan to correct this disaster. The plan, named Project Consolidate, was launched in October 2004.
Despite the concern expressed by the National Executive, and the billions of rands poured into this problem, the Mail & Guardian reported as follows on June 20, 2008: “About 60 percent of municipalities cannot give evidence to account for the revenue they received. These are mostly low-capacity municipalities, which means that they get their revenue from the National Treasury, and do not have to collect the bulk of their revenues from the citizens”. These are the shocking findings of Auditor General Terence Nombembe on the Local Government 2006/2007 financial results for South Africa’s 283 municipalities. Nombembe continues: “More than 50 percent cannot account for the bulk of their expenditure, so their statements cannot be trusted”. He adds that: “Only 25 percent of South African municipalities received unqualified audit reports”. That implies that three quarters of our municipalities are in trouble one way or the other. Almost 33 percent of municipal funds are ‘lost’ through ‘fruitless and wasteful expenditure’.
Almost 10 percent of municipalities (about 28) were unable to submit financial statements to the Auditor General’s Office at all. The Municipal Finance Management Act requires that financial statements “be audited and submitted annually, on time, to the Auditor General's Office”.
The Act further provides that municipal managers, mayors and financial managers are to be held liable for funds that are not accounted for. So the legislative machinery is in place to effectively manage municipal affairs. The problem, however, lies in the quality of the officials appointed to observe the legislation. Even if these individuals were well intentioned, they are utterly unsuited and under qualified for the task at hand.
The predictable ANC cognoscenti will immediately run, at this point, to their “fault of apartheid” arsenal of defences, thus relieving themselves of all blame, then and now. If their constituents buy all of this hackneyed gobbledegook, then sadly, these patient constituents deserve the government that they get. And under these pathetic circumstances the constituents should put their hopes of a better life on hold, until their elected ANC officials have achieved their capitalistic ambitions. May I humbly suggest that these poor souls assemble in long queues once more in about 2094 to get their share of the action.
How in good conscience can we allow the income taxes we pay on our hard-earned salaries, and the escalating rates and taxes we fork out for our properties, simply to be absorbed by individuals, for their personal gain?
All the while the downtrodden patiently await simple sanitation, water and electricity, promised 16 long years ago.
Provincial and Local Government Minister, Sydney Mufamadi, said at his Budget Vote in Parliament on June 3, 2008: “Progress was demonstrated by on the ground manifestations of progress since the introduction of Project Consolidate three years ago”. This progress, I venture to suggest, has only come about since Government asked private enterprise to partner them in their efforts in Project Consolidate. This after Government, in their wisdom, had retrenched all the municipal stalwarts and replaced them with ANC sympathisers or favourite nephews, who had scant knowledge of municipal affairs.
Where, one may ask, was the South African Local Government Association, an organisation mandated to assist in the transformation of the country’s 283 municipalities? Amos Masondo, SALGA Chairman, has recently, belatedly, fumbled his way to the podium, to say: “Incompetent officials who lack the necessary qualifications to run government finances, have no role to play in local government”. This blinding flash of the obvious comes as the Auditor General announces 191 qualified audit reports (or 67 percent) for municipalities and only two (or one percent) clean audits for the 2006/7 financial year.
Asked about fears of massive looting in municipalities Masondo said: “Many of these problems are caused by unqualified people, incompetent individuals”.
He continues: “Corruption thrives where things are not done in an orderly way”.
Twenty-four municipalities have been placed under curatorship since 2004. Project Consolidate managed to rehabilitate 14 of these by 2009. To date 11 municipalities or four percent still remain under curatorship.
Masondo warned that officials who mismanage municipal finances should be brought to book and prosecuted for their actions. According to the statistics that would entail putting most of the local government management in jail.
But wait, it gets worse. On September 10, 2009, the Auditor General, Terence Nombembe, announced to the Cape Town Press Club that only three of the 283 municipalities in South Africa had their books in order. Can it get worse!! Most definitely. Of 119 provincial departments audited, only seven have balanced their books.
For gosh sakes! Do you think we should tell him about Parliament?
Well Parliament already knows and sets a sorry example by having only seven out of 34 departments with a clean bill of health at the national level. To make matters worse it owes municipalities money!!! It ranks amongst the debtors that owe municipalities rates and taxes, levies and electricity dues. A massive sum of 55 billion rands is due by government and big business to municipalities. Service delivery stands idly by waiting for the big hogs to finish feeding at the trough. The Auditor- General’s Office has released consolidated audit outcomes for 2008/9 and irregular and wasteful expenditure in the following national departments was found:
Correctional Services R 344million
Home Affairs 92million
Labour 87million
Agriculture 15million
Land Affairs 5million
National Lottery 6million
A further six departments still have to have their audits completed. Jillian Bailey, the Auditor-General’s Head of Auditing, highlighted human resources as the biggest warning signal in many departments. She added that a host of departments also appeared to lack the capacity to account for their capital assets.
The Provincial Social Development Department announces at the same time that senior government officials are suspected of defrauding the department of as much as 60 million rands. These funds were allocated to help alleviate poverty in the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Those officials involved in the scam have had their bank accounts frozen by the commercial crimes unit.
But now back to local government.
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka said recently that many municipalities are in a state of distress and that “widespread corruption, fraud and nepotism is evident”.
Now here is the thing. As the intelligent ruling party deploys favourite nieces and nephews among their elite voters to these government posts and the stealing, starving and toy-toying masses religiously keep the party in the majority, one can only come to the conclusion that this is a bold and ingenious ‘Ponzi scheme’.
A scheme where the elitists are the haves and the rest of us voting South Africans, White, Black, Asian and Coloured, are the have-nots. Perhaps the hardworking have-nots should withhold their hard-earned tax contributions to shrink the funds available for plunder.
Municipalities had been the stronghold of the Nationalist Party since their ascendancy to power in 1948. Municipal management was consequently predominantly Afrikaans. After 1994 that began to change. I was witness to the changing of the guard which, in some extreme cases in KwaZulu-Natal, resulted in a three-way tussle for power between the incumbent National Party descendants, the emerging African National Congress hopefuls and the Inkatha Freedom Party protagonists. It was an exasperating environment in which to do business. It resembled, at times, three dogs fighting over a bone. As a dispassionate businessman, concerned only with equipping the municipal organ with the essential means to account for and speed up the service delivery process, this dogfight was counter-productive, mired in self-interest and most certainly did not benefit the citizens in the respective communities.
The National Party descendants clung to power and denied the incoming affirmatives access to knowledge gained over decades. Where the ANC had assumed the mantle of power, they were incapable of doing the job. The ANC arrogantly expelled the previous incumbents only to hire them as consultants at exorbitantly high fees.
The following scenario was regrettably the norm in many of the municipalities visited: Since 1994 simple folk have patiently waited for basic services and housing promised by the new constitution. These promises have been frustrated by the greed and ignorance of the ANC and the reluctance of the outgoing municipal genre to co-operate in the handover process. And while the dogs continued to fight over the bone, the bone continued to be mutilated.
Finance Manager
National Party descendent retired with huge handshake
Finance Manager
ANC political appointee on suspension
Acting Finance Manager
ANC political appointee on suspension
A consultant
ANC crisis appointee being the same guy who retired
And what of Project Consolidate? Hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned funds poured into a bottomless pit to fix the problem. No feedback. No prosecutions. No accountability. No results. The Honourable Mufamadi has moved on to a new trough without devouring all the slop in the last one. Professional audit reports lay piled up in the in-trays of incumbents too busy lunching or without the wherewithal to care, while the party goes on.
The cost of the Auditor General’s work is some 550 million rands annually.
A hard-hitting government report now describes how political meddling and in- fighting have brought many municipalities to the brink of collapse, unable to render services. And how funds are squandered while backlogs continue to mount. Gaye Davis of the Sunday Independent reported on October 18, 2009 that the Independent was in possession of a 60-page executive summary of the report which underpinned urgent moves by the Government to halt the downward spiral of decay and mismanagement and quell rising popular anger.
Compiled from assessments carried out in all nine provinces between April and August 2009 at the behest of Co-operative and Traditional Affairs Minister, Sicelo Shiceka, this new report recommends a range of interventions to halt the rot.
It proposes stripping regional and provincial ANC structures of their powers to put people into top municipal jobs. Also political intervention to deal with tensions and mistrust between municipal officials and councillors.
And most importantly, to pursue fraud and corruption allegations.
The report lays the basis for a turnaround strategy for local government to be submitted by the end of 2009 for government approval and implementation in January 2010.
A summit (more wining and dining at the trough) was held recently where President Zuma debated Shiceka’s Report with all nine MECs and Premiers for local government as well as all of the South African Government Association officials.
A ship without a rudder is not unlike a cork. It floats but sadly is devoid of any direction or other meaningful use.
The report concludes: “Patronage and nepotism is now so widespread that formal systems of accountability are ineffective and inaccessible to most citizens. There is now a lack of citizen confidence and trust in the system. Funds are siphoned off through poor financial management and corruption, service charges go uncollected and proper planning has been abandoned”.
Contrast this sad state of affairs with Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech on May 10, 1994 when he said: “They (the 1990 ANC Bill of Rights) project a democracy in which the government, whomever that government may be, will be bound by a
higher set of rules, embodied in a constitution and it will not be able to govern the country as it pleases… there will be regular, open and free elections at all levels of government – central, provincial and municipal”. It has taken just 16 years to trash Madiba’s dream.
The solution? Another summit. Another grand scheme. More billions thrown at the problem and then, like Project Consolidate in 2004, no progress, no results, no convictions, no prosecutions, no follow through, no communication with the affected communities and only apathetic shrugs from officials making a series of ‘Eishhhh!!!’ noises.
On public television on November 2, 2009 Shiceka himself was already starting to misquote the outcome statistics on Project Consolidate, which, happily for some, has now been swept under the carpet.
Should voters patiently wait until Shiceka’s concerns are also inevitably swept under the self-same tapestry??
In the medium term, between 2009 and 2011, local government will receive, through the equitable share, municipal systems’ improvement grant and the municipal infrastructure grant, a combined amount of some R122 billion. With the existing creaky financial structures, lack of accountability, qualified audits and a level of corruption that defies belief, you young voters will have to start asking pertinent questions of your local municipal manager, your SALGA appointee, your Provincial MEC, your Parliamentary representative and your President.
If you do not, your town’s budget will disappear long before you get a toilet.