 EDITORIAL COMMENT — by Dave Rorke
CAST your minds back to the end of last year when it was reported that Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) — at the time a part of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism — had run out of money and was in the red to the tune of R45-million, and could not even pay its telephone and electricity bills (see Editorial Comment, SKI-BOAT January/February 2009).
In fact, MCM was so deep in the financial mire that the pride of its fleet, the Sarah Baartman — a “purpose-built fishery and environmental protection vessel” — had been hired out to PetroSA’s Mossel Bay gas platform operations as a safety standby vessel and guard ship.
“Other reports have also suggested financial mismanagement in the DEAT division running the ship,” said Defence Web, a provider of information on African security and military matters. At the time of her launching, DEAT said they needed the vessel “to vigorously beef up compliance measures”.
I reported that as long ago as 2006, DEAT’s Director General Pam Yako (subsequently suspended this year due to alleged financial irregularities in her department) told Parliament that the vessel’s running costs were “fuel related”. It was calculated that 83 cents of every rand in the Marine Living Resources Fund (our fishing “permit” fees) was being spent on the vessel.
Of course, in the real world trivial money hiccups matter not one iota. The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, and her deputy, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, have just acquired new transport in the form of a Mercedes S350 for the former (price R796 003), and — horror! — a 4.8 litre BMW X 5 for the latter (price R900 000). Seems like it’s all a question of priorities: extravagant cars for the ministers, or settling MCM’s bills.
The Sunday Times’ Hogarth parodies Rejoice Mabudafhasi’s spending of “our money” to buy her 4.8 litre BMW X 5 as follows: “Trusting that there was a green message in there somewhere, Hogarth went to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers’ website to find out more. Burning 12.5 litres per 100km, and pumping out 299g of carbon per kilometre, it gives her a pretty good carbon footprint.”
Nothing like a good environmental example from our Deputy Minister who, I must confess, has always brought a smile to my face when she has appeared on TV, mostly to open functions or read speeches on behalf of her former head, Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk. She must have been good friends with the former Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, because in her speeches she often managed to extol the benefits of homegrown cabbage, beetroot, onions and spinach!
This aside, I’m sure her ministry head, Buyelwa Sonjica, can’t be too happy playing second fiddle to her deputy in the transport department. Indeed, should she want to trump her junior’s choice of wheels, I don’t think money could possibly be a problem anymore — irrespective of the recession. Judging from government ministers’ recent expenditure on ultra-luxury motor vehicles, and the recent announcement by MCM Director General Monde Mayekiso that South Africa is to get a new R1.3-billion polar research ship, money is obviously no object any longer.
No doubt, Mayekiso has managed to pay off his R45-million bill, with telephone line and electricity supply reinstated, and has simply been following the lead of his ministers in the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, under which his department now falls. One hopes, too, that he has found enough money to recommission and fuel the Sarah Baartman, so that she can be deployed by MCM to “vigorously beef up compliance measures”.
According to Hogarth, Mayekiso said the new ship “... would conduct valuable research, such as surveys of fish stocks ... around Marion Island and the Prince Edward Islands. But the same luminary said just a year ago that there was no money left to fuel the existing coastguard vessels, so Hogarth hopes the ship comes with oars — or runs on fish oil.” It’s all a joke, isn’t it?
Happy reading and good catches!
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