Watching TV, listening to the radio and reading newspapers these days will depress you. It seems that our country has or is being run mafia-style. It’s like watching a horror movie; things that are coming out are only seen in movies.
It’s like our government is run by a cartel that set out to create a state of lawlessness, a mafia state. Our country faces the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
There is a hunger for land, our land reform process has been slow and people are getting more and more frustrated by the day with no hope of getting their land back.
There has been talk of expropriation of land without compensation, however, with what has been happening one will ask him/herself who is pulling the strings or who is the puppet master behind all of this.
I agree with the notion that the current skewed land ownership undermines agricultural development and food security. The notion that the landless are not interested in farming is a fallacy. The exorbitant amount of money paid out of the fiscus has not contributed towards accelerated land reform and redress.
We however know that in some instances there have been problems of collusion between department officials and some farmers, badly distorting land prices.
The Special Investigating Unit uncovered corruption involving millions in grants issued under the department’s land reform programme and many have been fired and others suspended. I urge the SIU to root out this corrupt conduct in the department.
Moral defects, distrust, abuse of power and privilege, misuse of resources, corruption and hypocrisy have become more associated with leadership today than at any other time in history. We are entering a sad period of moral decay and total disregard of the rule of law.
Yet, there is no greater need in our 21st-century world today than effective, competent leadership. The number one need in our country today is quality, morally disciplined, principle-centred leadership. The 21st century’s greatest challenge is its leadership vacuum.
The complex, uncertain, uncharted waters of the 21st century have plunged us into a world of globalisation, terrorism, economic uncertainty, famine, disease epidemics, social transformation, corporate compromises, moral and ethical experimentation, religious conflicts and cultural clashes. These conditions demand the highest quality of leadership.
Leadership has become a role one plays rather than a life one pursues, as leaders attempt to divorce their personal lives from their public responsibilities and personal standards from their public lives.
To many, leadership is an act – not a calling. So they lead double lives. Leadership is not a technique, a style or the acquisition of skills, but a manifestation of a principle.