Salamu
I don’t write on this site as much as I would like. That is
just the nature of the beast. I would like to focus on writing more of these
posts as it is an outlet for me to discuss issues I can’t talk about in the
office environment or with lady friends.
Some people just don’t deserve to live. I know that this is
bad coming from a good Catholic Boy such as myself, but if you really think of
it, there are certain people that the world could have done better without.
Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Osama Bin Ladin, Pol Pot, Steve Hoffmeyer. The list goes on and on. South Africa has
also recently produced two political additions to this list in Jacob Zuma and
Julius Malema.
There is a point to this post, I promise you .But first let
me ask you a question: what do Idi Amin, Fulgencio Batista, Louis XVI of France
and Marie Antoinette have in common. They all said three very detrimental words:
FUCK THE POOR. This is also essentially
what the ANC government says every day, but we cannot prove it.
Here is another prize individual to add to your list. But before
we talk about him, let’s talk about his company. I’ll give you the remix
version. African Bank went on a money lending spree that would have made the
Yanks that caused the 2009 global financial crisis jealous. Basically, they were
giving loans to every Tom Dick and Harry who could not pay these loans off. The
house of cards fell in on itself and the company lost 90% of its value
overnight.
 |
| FUCK THE POOR! |
So obviously every media company in the country wants to get
hold of someone in charge at the Fuck the poor!
establishment to find out what they think
about the whole thing. They got hold of Tami Sokutu, former chief risk officer
at African Bank who took a leaf out of the books of the great dictators of the
world and said:
The following bit of information was taken from an article
on a prominent South African news website. Sokutu, who made more than
R50-million in share options and earned another R35-million in salary and
bonuses from his time as African Bank’s chief
risk officer, was asked about those who had obtained loans but were now unable
to repay them.
The lives of thousands of borrowers have been ruined because
they have been listed as bad credit risks. In response to their plight, Sokutu
said: "Fuck them, fuck them."
Asked whether these people would be right to blame him for
not having done a better job of controlling lending at the bank, Sokutu's
answer was simple: "They will be right to say, 'I'm fucked.'"
Sokutu agreed to an interview with the Sunday Times this
week. He stumbled and fell to the ground while welcoming the newspaper's
reporter to his house in a gated complex in Centurion, Pretoria.
During the interview, he repeatedly boasted about how he had
made millions and was now globetrotting.
He has three houses in South Africa, including holiday homes
in Port Alfred and Cape Town, and another in Portugal. He said he did not need
to ever work again. Sokutu also boasted about owning six cars, including a
Porsche, which he said was parked "somewhere in the world - I don't know
where". He also owns a Hummer H2, a turquoise Bentley, a BMW M6, a
Mercedes-Benz A-Class and a Mercedes S500. His Johannesburg car, the Bentley,
stood in his double garage.
Who in their right mind would say something like this? A person
who knows that not a thing will be done to him, that’s who. He probably has
every law maker and custodian in this country in his back pocket.
Look, he does have a point in a sense. If you cannot pay off
a loan, don’t go and get a loan. It is that simple. But then again, if you - as
a chief risk officer - can see that the person applying for the loan will never
be able to pay it off, you have a moral obligation to refuse to give them that
loan.
That is the problem with the world. It has simply lost its
humanity. It’s also not a case of his salary is X and his expenses are Y. It’s
a case of his position giving him a taste for the finer things in life which he
simply cannot fund in a conventional manner.
Does this happen in the rest of the world, or only in South
Africa? Why can we not stand up as a country and bring people like this to book
to answer for what he has done? Another reason he can safely say Fuck the Poor
is because they will go after the CEO and the CFO before they come after him.
Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!
