Rabbie Serumula, author, award-winning poet, journalist.
Rabbie Serumula
Somewhere in South Africa today, two young entrepreneurs are making plans. One is trying to invent something the world has never seen. The other is trying to win a government tender. If you were forced to bet your life's savings on only one of them becoming a millionaire, which would you choose?
That uncomfortable question lies beneath the growing controversy surrounding businessman Sakie Sakhumzi Magele and the nearly R4 billion he received in education contracts, reportedly awarded by the Eastern Cape Department of Education.
A country reveals itself by what it rewards. Reward the farmer, and the fields grow green. Reward the inventor, and factories rise from empty land. Reward the teacher, and generations inherit possibility. But reward the middleman long enough, and eventually everyone stops asking how to make something. They begin asking how to invoice it.
