Many of the controversies that face South Africa can be linked to a system, of late, dubbed 'tenderpreneurship'. The term was created by joining the nouns 'tender' and 'entrepreneurship' and is used to describe someone whose core business is to tender for work from government and the private sector with an appropriate slant towards the former. There are many South African residents and citizens who seek no other honest day's work but tenders from the government. Tenderpreneurship has produced many millionaires for the country. In Limpopo Province the tenderpreneurs even have their own exclusive residential area aptly called "Tender Park". Tender Park epitomises wealth to the extent that the grandness of the houses in this area and the expensiveness of the cars parked in their garages can be used as a measuring tool.
However, tenderpreneurship is not honourabe a profession nor noble in ideal. It is a system that fuels corruption or even has corruption and deceit as its founding principles. Moreover, it offers the tenderpreneur a fundamentally false hope.
Tenderpreneurship subverts educational pursuits of the country
In 2011 Fiona Forde wrote a book about the president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), Julius Malema. While the book looks at the rise of this young politician, it also devotes a portion to the way in which he accumulated his wealth. The book records, among other things, that Malema's tendering business was started while he was still a high school student. It is evident from Forte's discussion that Malema saw an opportunity that would get him out of poverty. Thus far, there is nothing wrong with this picture and, some may say, commendation and recognition of this enterpreneurship spirit is deserved.
However, the situation gets murky if one looks at the launching pad of this entrepreneurial career and its potential logical implications and/or repercussions. Not many would generally gainsay that role-modeling is a key aspect in the growing up stages of any child. Hence parents encourage their children to associate with people who would provide positive influence and/or try to be good role models for their own children. The logic--which I accept--is that a child would be influenced by things done by adults and seek to emulate them. The converse is also true. This explains why parents would avoid an association of their children with people whose behavioural patterns they see as inappropriate.
Moving from this starting point and accepting that every human being--or at least a good many--would pursue wealth given a chance and/or seek economic comfort, by now there should be many youths and children who admire Julius Malema and the luxurious life style he leads. An inquiry by such a child would lead him/her to the fact that this wealth was accumulated with no hard work or with minimal effort. Malema's key to success came from his political acumen and a good measure of luck. He associated with the "right" people who were willing to open the tender system wide open for him in return for favours such as political loyalty and/or support. This makes sense if one takes into account that the ANCYL, of which Malema became president, is a self-declared king-maker in the leadership struggles of the mother body, the African National Congress (ANC). This king-maker status claim by the ANCYL is supported by ample evidence for, among others; the current top leadership of the ANC and the country ascended to high office largely owing to efforts of the ANCYL.
That said and back to our fictitious young person being role-modeled. This young person--having appraised him/herself about Malema and his riches as well as the circumstances surrounding it may find it difficult to accept the foundational values of hard work, diligence, patience and endurance as effective ways of making it in life. I would venture to say that the likelihood of such young person discarding/rejecting these values in favour of those that made the likes of Malema. By the way, there are many in South Africa who fit the foregoing description of Malema and his wealth. Such a young person is also bound to know that Malema is being investigated by authorities for corruption and other related crimes. But if there are any hopes that this development may be a deterrent to our young person, that likelihood is minimised by the notion that politicians--for as long as they remain favoured by the powerful--get kid clove treatment from the South African criminal justice system. I discussed this elsewhere and it is neither necessary nor convenient to provide evidence for this assertion for the purposes of my current discussion.
Using Malema's situation and contrasting it with the developmental goals of the South African government which are--in a significant way--premised on education, the contradiction is embarrassingly glaring. South Africa encourages hard work, honesty and many other good values but rewards the opposite. An average professional in South Africa who has worked for a good twenty five years--likely including Julius Malema's former teachers--can only dream of the wealth Malema has accumulated without participation in any profession. It does not help matters that the president of the country--as his spokesperson reminded the world recently--does not have any formal education. It is any one's guess what impact this unsustainable contradiction is going to have on the country. But if anyone sought my opinion, it is: through greed and in the interests of political expedience, leaders are sacrificing their integrity, integrity of the country and, importantly, the future of the youths whom they claim to be inspiring and moulding into responsible citizenship.
False hope and false sense of security
A further shortcoming of tenderpreneurship is that it gives those involved in it false hope and false sense of security. Tenderpreneurship compares favourably to a magnificent castle built on sand as recent developments in the Limpopo province have shown. A short exposition of these developments may benefit further discussion of this subheading.
When Thabo Mbeki, the former South African and ANC President, was unceremoniously stripped of his political power, the victors--under Zuma--had to change the status quo in respect of access to state resources, including tenders. This was necessary a step, primarily, because those that worked tirelessly to effect this change in command had now arrived and deserved to be rewarded. Unfortunately, the result of this turn of events entailed that some of the tenderpreneurs who enjoyed favour--read easy and/or ready access to government work--would lose out. This was, in part, because the pie was not big enough for all to share and, in part, because those that did not support the Zuma take-over had to be punished. Some of those deprived of access to resources have now formed an organisation of disgruntled business people who are, interestingly, the loudest of voices in condemning the unacceptable levels of corruption taking place in government.
Despite the truthfulness of their allegations against those currently in power and my own disgust with corruption, I call them 'the pot calling the kettle black'. Their apparent Damascus experience, which has let them realise how destructive corruption is, how important good governance is and how unfair the tender system is, etc is what I see as hypocrisy. Why was it not such a problem to them when they still had access to government resources? Some of this new good governance and anti-corruption apostles appear to have learnt the word 'corruption' recently. If not, they would have to do a lot more to convince those cynical - like me - by satisfactorily answering pertinent questions, such as why they were never heard condemning corruption when it benefitted them.
This Limpopo experience shows how unreliable the tender system is as a business foundation. It relies on and depends on forces beyond the control of the tenderpreneur him/herself or over whose direction, s/he has very little influence. And I think, and this is where I leave this depressing and scandalous topic, it is silly to make plans that rely significantly on politicians. I say this with little care about country or continent for politics and politicians' unreliability is legendary and pervasive. But as for South Africa, returning to my soccer metaphor, they seem to be scoring an own-goal and defeat is certain unless She mends Her ways.
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