Davos is a gathering of the super-wealthy and the top
Government leaders. It presents a
wonderful opportunity for the politically-inclined to profile themselves to the
world media, to show a passion for improving the lot of the world’s
poorest. It is equally a wonderful opportunity
for those with wealth and buying power to exercise that buying power to secure
their position in the next round of money-grabbing, and for the politicians
holding the strings of power in their respective countries to negotiate the
price for the year’s round of corruption.
Has any decision that has come out of Davos done anything to
improve the state of the world for the 99% who will by next year hold less than
half of its wealth? Has it ever occurred
to you why the money-hungry politicians see Davos as an extremely important
event? Have you ever seen a poor
politician attending Davos?
Any thinking citizen, especially one living in South Africa,
where the greed of the politicians, satisfied at the cost of the taxpayers and
the expense of the poor, must be concerned when the nation’s leaders, right
down to the CEO of Eskom, the demonstrably least competent power utility in the
world, find Davos a must-go meeting.
Certainly, their dealings with the super-wealthy could be conducted
behind closed doors in other places, but the concentration of
influence-peddling in Davos makes it the premier venue to wrap up the deals for
the coming year.
The amount of public money spent on these conferences and
visits, if the Government were a public company, would require a detailed
report to at least the Board of Directors.
Why should Jacob Zuma and his cohorts be immune to the need to justify
their actions, and to report on their achievements, or lack of them? Every concerned citizen has witnessed the
disregard (or possibly fear?) that Zuma and the Ministers and heads of the
public bodies funded by taxpayers’ money have of reporting to the representatives
of the taxpayers. Zuma ran from
Parliament in August, when representatives of some of the people demanded an
accounting by him for the money found by the Public Protector to have been
incorrectly appropriated by him for the building of his Nkandla palace. Now, the Speaker has announced that Zuma will
appear to answer questions before Parliament in March, six months later! She has chosen to exempt him from questioning
before, during or after his State of the Nation propaganda speech in
February. Can this be an acceptable
level of accounting by the President to the people? Will the Speaker permit questions to be asked
of Zuma regarding the deals he makes at Davos, Beijing or Moscow? Will she demand that Zuma actually answers
such questions as may be asked?
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