According to Professor Piet Naudé, USB’s director: “The crisis in higher education requiring decisive leadership, the apparent misuse of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for political purposes, and the moral questions around the integrity of the president and his upholding of his oath of office, are some of the issues we would like to raise our concern about.”
“If we govern our country properly and create certainty of policy in the mind of investors, foreign direct investment in South Africa can in fact be much higher than it is at the moment,” he says. “If we can dramatically diminish either corrupt or wasteful expenditure, South Africa should be growing at about 3%. We are not performing optimally. We can and must do better and need to get the basics right.”
The board says it is concerned about the political influence on organs of the state where fierce independence and objectivity are in fact required, growing signs that public resources are misused for private gain, the erosion of transparent and rules-based governance at the highest level, harassment and prosecution of people standing up for truth and democracy, and the lack of ethical and decisive leadership to address the economy and dire education situation in the country.
“The more people speak, the more the dissent comes out. This is not a time for doing nothing. Let us demonstrate our collective goodwill to speak up and act for the sake of the greater common good and the strengthening of our democracy,” Naudé says.
