Trevor Manuel, South Africa's long-serving Minister of Finance, has had a busy time of it. When he hasn't been demanding reform at the IMF, he has been lecturing the US and Western Europe on their theft of valuable skilled people from our nation.
Let's lay to rest this claim that skills are being plundered from South Africa.
Say little Johnny or Sarah comes running home and says, "I'm leaving Pofadder for Jo'burg. I can earn twice as much and the opportunities are more exciting." Is Jo'burg "stealing" skills from Pofadder?
There are plenty of small South African towns that are dying as young, ambitious people leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Should their municipal councils demand that Jo'burg refuse to take these migrants in and return them at once?
"Run your small business as if it is a big business," says Erik Parker, South Africa's franchise guru, as one of his points for business success. Or, if you're more of a socialist, "Become the change you seek," according to Mahatma Ghandi.
From a business perspective it means that, if you're aiming for the long-term, you don't take short cuts even if they look lucrative. The result is a contradiction: proclaiming one thing while acting in quite the opposite way.
The expectation that, one day when the company is big, you'll correct all the misdemeanours in between is ignorant. It is no more likely than waking up on your fortieth birthday, after a life of indolence and fatty foods, and completing the Comrades Marathon.
Public Works Minister Thoka Didiza is considering importing an Indian employment model that will guarantee every household the right to 100 days of paid work per year. Didiza, as a representative of the state, is promising people the right to a job based on the premise that not having a job is sufficient reason to get one.
There are 33,000 vacancies in state hospitals. Government administrators have thousands more unfilled positions. And this is just in the public sector.
Clearly there is no shortage of opportunities to work and, just as clearly, the massed unemployed must be unsuitable for the work available.
