Wesley Seale, Gardens Centre
Jacques Moolman starts his presidency of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry with a bang.
In his letter “Unions’ demand is lunacy” he attacks the unions while on other media outlets he is bashing the government. Yet why is a chamber president attacking public sector unions?
This punching at everyone, it would seem, could be an attempt to be relevant. Yet he would be far more relevant if he were to work with rather than against these two important stakeholders, government and the unions. He should adopt a cooperative approach rather than an adversarial one.
In fact, Mr Moolman advises a first-year economics course for educators, police personnel and healthcare workers. Yet hopefully this is not an economics course in Thatcherism which seems to be influencing Mr Moolman’s thoughts and actions.
Thatcher had precisely this adversarial approach towards government and the unions. But Thatcherism was thrown out the window by the early 1990’s and especially even by institutions such as the World Bank in 1997.
Rather, what is needed is a cooperative attitude and a working together to tackle our city and country’s ills. Creating cohesion is what countries in the East did.
We cannot see fellow citizens as enemies but must rather see them, and their struggles, as partners. Hopefully, this is the lesson Mr Moolman must learn or else Cape Chamber will simply be going from one bashing and banging leadership to the next.