Dismay at Choice of technology partners
The announcement following President Zuma’s visit to Iran, that South Africa has signed a memorandum committing it to work Iranian technology to build several desalination plants along our coast, beggar’s belief.
Yet again our government spits in the face of local technology which is far more developed than Iran, which only recently acquired the Reverse Osmosis technology which is essential in the desalination process.
Iran has its own huge water challenges and is far from resolving them. It is counter intuitive and irrational for South Africa to look to Iran to solve its water shortage problem stemming from the drought.
South Africa is committing itself to pay for Iran’s learning curve while it struggles to build water desalination plants on an industrial scale. This is yet another example of politics trumping economics, where instead of choosing proven state of the art technologies, South Africa commits to partner with non-Western partners, out of some romantic notion of loyalty to old friends that allied with the ANC against Apartheid.
While there may be an element of truth to this, the current Islamic Republic of Iran has possibly the worst human rights record of any state. Its judicial apparatus hangs and kills untold thousands and its Sharia law permits women to be stoned for unproven charges of adultery.
It is the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism, working through proxy terrorist groups to destabilise the whole Middle East. By honouring our deemed friends, we dishonour our human rights record and erode our commitment to human rights.
In the same vein, Pravin Gordham appears to be all that is holding us back from partnering with Russia, on a nuclear deal, that will certainly push us into ‘junk status’ and over the fiscal cliff. Yet again, we choose our partners to repay old debts of loyalty, which defy rational and purely economic reasoning. Furthermore, Putin’s Russia, has an appalling human rights record, of disposing and imprisoning political opponents and of military aggression against weak neighbours.
Another atrocious kick in the face for local engineers, was the recruiting of about 50 Cuban water Engineers, by our Department of Water to work on resolving issues of water scarcity. No wonder that about 60% of our engineers are seeking greener pastures of employment outside South Africa.
Once again, we continue to repeat the same mistakes, by employing below par professionals sourced from countries deemed nostalgically ‘old friends and comrades’ at the expense of our own citizens and at a huge cost, in excess of R100 million, to local taxpayers.
All these experiments come at a huge cost to local taxpayers and many are bound to fail. Only when we as taxpayers revolt and when we as an electorate vote out these incompetent politicians who commit future generations to pay for these political vanities, will be able to address the real challenges that we need to face.
