THE NATION IS ENGAGING IN A PUBLIC CONVERSATION THIS WEEK ON HONESTY. HEARTLINES patron Rev Dr Mvume Dandala writes that this value is the cornerstone on which godly values are built.

Greed, that universal predator of corruption, is constantly on the prowl, sustained by a diet of dishonesty in which self-gain is the prime ingredient. Its voracious hunger is never sated and Africa is not exempt from its reach.

We have often fallen prey and have surrendered to the lure of a world whose humanity is eclipsed by neon lights and magnificent displays of materialism. We have those hovering around us ever ready to sell us their ideologies and worldviews as long as in the process they can line their own pockets.

If we do not take steps to destroy Greed, corruption will continue to rip away the fabric of South African society. It will take courage, but it must be routed out - right from top levels in government and business where a blind eye is too often turned to ‘indiscretions’ – down to local communities where bribes are taken or offered to avoid traffic fines.

What are the challenges facing us if we are going to cultivate honesty as one of the prime values that should govern our nation?

The extreme salary discrepancies that exist specifically between those in the upper echelons of power and ordinary working people, where leaders earn obscene amounts of money, and are seen to be accruing – often by questionable means - even more, must surely be addressed?

On the other end of the wage gap, we cannot avoid the fact that the value of honesty is undermined by dire social conditions. Poverty is the fertile ground from which dishonesty can grow. If I am not paid enough and cannot provide for my family the tendency to steal is strong. From there it’s a downward spiral to a place where my life is governed by the creed of greed.

There is no culture that condones corruption - it is people who bend the rules. In spite of legislation there will always be those in our midst who will find ways around the law. It will take courage and determination for the nation to cultivate the value of honesty.

A place to start is to acknowledge that none of us has a clean slate and even the smallest blot – like exceeding the speed limit - will require erasing if it is not to spread. Honesty requires that I must first and foremost start with myself, my situation and with what I can or can’t afford. If I cheat myself at this level, I am opening myself up to a life of corruption.

I cannot say I will have whatever I want, whatever it takes but instead, I must ask myself what is the most honest way I can get it. If it means saving, no matter that friends or family already have it, that is the route I must take. Honesty in any relationship, especially within families, requires that I must be able to say when I cannot afford something.

This will need commitment in these times of instant gratification - where keeping up with the Joneses and the Tshabalalas has often become the value of the day to which we must all aspire.

It was Albert Einstein who said: “To set a good example is not the best way to influence others – it is the only way.”

In walking the talk, as Parents and teachers, we need to instil the value of honesty in our children from an early age. Wherever young people are nurtured, a higher level of commitment to upholding this value is needed. Such a commitment will require perseverance if honesty is to manifest itself in every situation and … it has to be reduced basic behaviour.

Whether I am a housewife, a business executive, a member of Parliament or church leader, honesty requires me to reject a bribe and abide by the rules of society. As the man in the house when my wife is upset because I am late, I need to be truthful and deal with the consequences. Honesty must become a habit.

There was a time during the apartheid regime where being wealthy was seen as questionable because it was perceived as having been accrued from supporting or being in cahoots with the Government. Having discarded this baggage, we now have to realise that it is possible to create wealth honestly for oneself and to be a wealth creator without robbing another. The challenge for South Africa is for wealth creators to boldly walk the path of honesty and share their story not boastfully, but as a contribution that reinforces their determination to create wealth in honest ways for the country and its people.

Experience has shown that those who have created wealth in a clean and honest way are always ready to involve themselves in ploughing wealth back into the community to create opportunities for others.

Somewhere along the way this can happen and, when we look back, it will always point to values inculcated in childhood

Rev Mvume H Dandala, General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, and is the recipient of the Presidential Order of the Baobab (Silver) for his peace-making role in South Africa.

HONEST REFEREES SCARCE, SAYS FORMER PSL OFFICIAL

By Karien Jonckheere

Adeel Carelse could probably be a very rich man if he wanted to be.

But instead the former PSL referee chose to resist the temptations to which so many of his fellow officials succumbed. As a result he has become well known for his integrity, not only on the field but off it too.
Coming from a background in the navy, Carelse spent four and half years as the National Lotto draw manager and presided over 311 games as a referee.

Because of his sterling reputation, he was then selected as one of just nine people who act as match commissioners in the country.

“I was also heavily involved in Operation Dribble which was aimed at regaining the credibility of refereeing in South Africa,” explained Carelse.

Operation Dribble was the result of the revelation of widespread corruption among the country’s soccer referees and led to several of them being arrested for being paid large sums of money to throw premier and first division matches.

“I think there were certain refs that people knew they could buy but others they knew were as straight as a die and so I think it kind of bypassed me. From what I have read refs were being offered between R10 000 and R20 000 per game though,” said Carelse.

“Once after a game someone actually came up to me to pay me off because he thought I was in on a deal and I was like ‘huh?’ I then informed the PSL and explained the situation but in the end a decision was taken not to charge the club involved because of a lack of evidence.”

Carelse said that at no point was he even tempted to consider accepting a bribe.

“You can’t buy, borrow or steal integrity, you have to earn it. It would never even have entered my mind to accept a bribe. It goes against everything I believe in and I would rather die a poor man than accept a bribe and get rich from it.”

Asked why where his strength came from to resist the temptation to significantly boost his income, Carelse reckoned: “It’s my own sense of values and ethics. I think it came from when I was in the navy and I have carried those values through to refereeing as well.”

So, has the situation in soccer been sorted out since the fiasco of 2004? “I don’t think the situation is completely resolved yet but it is certainly much, much better. If you look back today, the refs we have today are definitely up to standard,” said Carelse who believes honesty is something that should be integral to any sport.

“You can’t measure its importance, especially when it comes to administrators and officials. Dishonesty is a scourge that needs to be eradicated from sport. There should be no place whatsoever in sport, whether it’s soccer or any other sport, for cheating.” – Heartlines Features

ATHLETICS SA CALLS FOR MEDICINES CONTROL COUNCIL TO ACT ON DOPING

By Karien Jonckheere

Positive dope tests are hitting the headlines on an almost daily basis, with sprinter Justin Gatlin and Tour de France winner Floyd Landers the most notable examples of late.
Closer to home, South African athletics was rocked by an alarming number of drug busts earlier this year. And according to Athletics South Africa (ASA) not enough is being done to aid them in their efforts to eliminate the problem from the sport.

“Plenty of the athletes have revealed where they are getting the drugs but something seems not to be working,” said Linda Ferns, General Manager of ASA, earlier this year after road runner Gladys Lukhwareni revealed the name of a pharmacy in Pretoria where she had obtained a banned substance. “What is the Medicines Control Council doing? They need to sit up and take note but for some reason they have been very quiet,” added Ferns.

It seems nothing has changed since then.

“We notified the Medicines Control Council, correspondence was sent to them but we still haven’t had any response as yet,” explained ASA’s Marketing and Communications Manager Phiwe Tsholetsane. “There is nothing more we can do because it is a legal matter now. The only thing that we could do was report the matter to the them which we did.

“It is frustrating because it is our business to develop athletes. We want to see a solution because five athletes testing positive in one week is quite a shock. A lot of other sports would just sweep it under the carpet and deal with it internally but we want to promote being clean as athletes,” added Tsholetsane.
“We have people like Khotso (Mokoena), LJ (Van Zyl) and Mbulaeni (Mulaudzi) who are doing really well and we want to promote that and say, ‘look, these guys are clean and they can do it, you don’t need to take drugs’. We are trying to protect our squad who have a great chance of doing well at the next world championships and Olympics.

“As ASA we obviously ban athletes who test positive but if the Medicines Control Council don’t do anything, athletes think ‘What the heck is going on because nobody is doing anything about it.’”

Nick Bester, manager of the Harmony athletics club, which experienced a massive problem with drugs earlier this year said he had also not heard anything from the Medicines Control Council.

“It is out of our hands,” said Bester. “We have handed all the evidence over. We are an athletics club and that’s not our responsibility. But we haven’t heard anything back and as far as I know nothing has happened so far.”
Numerous attempts to contact the Registrar of the Medicines Control Council, Mandisa Hela, for comment on the progress of this case proved unsuccessful.

ASA, meanwhile continue in their efforts to keep the sport clean.

“I think the situation in athletics is generally better now,” said Tsholetsane. “We test the winners at all our national events and we are confident that we are doing everything in our power to deal with the problem. We just need the Medicines Control Council to do the same.” – Heartlines Features

DOES HONESTY PAY IN THE WORKPLACE?

Between and 35 percent of South Africa’s workers are HIV positive – depending on which statistics you believe. Sharon Davis looks at workers’ fear of revealing their status.

But whichever figures you accept it still remains that a significant percentage of South African’s, who fall within the economically active portion of the population, are HIV positive. This raises the rather delicate question of whether employees should be honest about their HIV status at work.

Those who are against revealing their status fear losing their jobs and stigmatisation from co-workers – but for most people who have revealed their status they have found a growing community of support and assistance with access to life-prolonging information and medication.

German family-owned luxury vehicle manufacturer, BMW SA, based in Rosslyn, Pretoria, has actively encouraged people to know their status and embarked on a education programmes both on the prevention of HIV and AIDS and living with HIV and AIDS. Dr Natalie Mayet, BMW SA’s manager for Health and Occupation Medicine, said that almost 90 percent of the employees at the Rosslyn plant had been voluntarily tested for infection, and of those tested, between 6 and 6,5 percent are HIV positive.

“It’s not about a virus,” said Dr Mayet. “It’s about people.” Last year the plant had 160 HIV positive employees. Of these, 30 employees were on Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs) to boost their immune system. Dr Mayet emphasised that the disease was manageable, citing examples of three employees who where unable to work as a result of developing full-blown AIDS, but with treatment and counselling these employees were able to return to work, in their previous positions.

For businesses like BMW SA and Eskom, it is in fact a strategic business decision to provide support for the prevention and management of HIV and AIDS. The potential cost to business in terms of lost production due to illness, or the recruiting and training of new staff is high, so most businesses prefer to manage the impact of HIV and AIDS through comprehensive programmes, providing support to those both infected and affected.

Eskom, our national electricity supplier, committed itself to fight against HIV and AIDS from 1987 through the implementation of various strategies including HIV and AIDS education, policies and procedures to create a workplace free of discrimination and stigmatisation, as well as care and support for families, reaching out beyond the workforce into the affected communities.

“We should encourage people to know their status, said Mpho Letlape, Eskom’s Human Resources Director. “We should encourage those infected to have regular blood tests so that they can start taking ARVs at the appropriate time – before they get really sick.”

“By encouraging testing and the use of nutrition and ARVs we will help people to remain both healthy and economically active for much longer. The individuals will be able to lead an enjoyable and almost normal life; they will be able to work and support their families; and they will continue to contribute productively to the national economy,” said Letlape.

Martin Vosloo is one example of how honesty about HIV status paid off. Diagnosed with HIV in 1990, he joined Eskom as a contract worker to address staff on the realities of living with HIV and AIDS in 1997, and was recently employed by Eskom in a new position as a full-time employee on medical aid.

Busi Zulu is Eskom’s head of Planning and Design. She was diagnosed with HIV in January 1996 and has embraced the support systems offered by the company, both at work and at home, and gained sufficient courage and self worth to lead Eskom’s corporate division AIDS Support Group which includes souse support and work-related AIDS issues support.

All of Eskom’s staff is on medical aid, and the coverage is comprehensive; including the cost of ARVs, which Busi started taking twice a day in 2002. Busi, along with Martin, has been active in encouraging people to face up to HIV and AIDS and play an instrumental role in communicating correct and relevant information to those infected. They help them to overcome fears and teach and encourage them to live and embrace life, despite the disease.

Moving away from large companies to smaller organisations who do not have HIV and AIDS programmes in place – what then?

John Ndlovu (not his real name as he fears stigmatisation from his colleagues) works for a small company in a rural area just outside Durban. He discovered that he is infected with HIV only two months ago, and has told only his mother and his employers about his status.

He has not yet found the courage to tell his wife and children for fear of her angry response. In broken English he explained that it was important to him for his employers to understand that he was sick and not just shirking. He admitted that at first he was scared of losing his job, but now he has taken so much time off work due to the illness, that he found the courage to tell his employers in the hope that they would understand when he is not well enough to work.

Although the small company is not able to offer the benefits of counselling and ARVs offered at larger organisations, they have at least been able to offer Ndlovu moral and spiritual support at a time when one can see he is still trying to come to terms with having contracted HIV, and they are encouraging him to eat healthy meals and to visit the counselling centre nearby. – Heartlines Features

DOES HONESTY PAY IN THE WORKPLACE?

Between and 35 percent of South Africa’s workers are HIV positive – depending on which statistics you believe. Sharon Davis looks at workers’ fear of revealing their status.

But whichever figures you accept it still remains that a significant percentage of South African’s, who fall within the economically active portion of the population, are HIV positive. This raises the rather delicate question of whether employees should be honest about their HIV status at work.

Those who are against revealing their status fear losing their jobs and stigmatisation from co-workers – but for most people who have revealed their status they have found a growing community of support and assistance with access to life-prolonging information and medication.

German family-owned luxury vehicle manufacturer, BMW SA, based in Rosslyn, Pretoria, has actively encouraged people to know their status and embarked on a education programmes both on the prevention of HIV and AIDS and living with HIV and AIDS. Dr Natalie Mayet, BMW SA’s manager for Health and Occupation Medicine, said that almost 90 percent of the employees at the Rosslyn plant had been voluntarily tested for infection, and of those tested, between 6 and 6,5 percent are HIV positive.

“It’s not about a virus,” said Dr Mayet. “It’s about people.” Last year the plant had 160 HIV positive employees. Of these, 30 employees were on Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs) to boost their immune system. Dr Mayet emphasised that the disease was manageable, citing examples of three employees who where unable to work as a result of developing full-blown AIDS, but with treatment and counselling these employees were able to return to work, in their previous positions.

For businesses like BMW SA and Eskom, it is in fact a strategic business decision to provide support for the prevention and management of HIV and AIDS. The potential cost to business in terms of lost production due to illness, or the recruiting and training of new staff is high, so most businesses prefer to manage the impact of HIV and AIDS through comprehensive programmes, providing support to those both infected and affected.

Eskom, our national electricity supplier, committed itself to fight against HIV and AIDS from 1987 through the implementation of various strategies including HIV and AIDS education, policies and procedures to create a workplace free of discrimination and stigmatisation, as well as care and support for families, reaching out beyond the workforce into the affected communities.

“We should encourage people to know their status, said Mpho Letlape, Eskom’s Human Resources Director. “We should encourage those infected to have regular blood tests so that they can start taking ARVs at the appropriate time – before they get really sick.”

“By encouraging testing and the use of nutrition and ARVs we will help people to remain both healthy and economically active for much longer. The individuals will be able to lead an enjoyable and almost normal life; they will be able to work and support their families; and they will continue to contribute productively to the national economy,” said Letlape.

Martin Vosloo is one example of how honesty about HIV status paid off. Diagnosed with HIV in 1990, he joined Eskom as a contract worker to address staff on the realities of living with HIV and AIDS in 1997, and was recently employed by Eskom in a new position as a full-time employee on medical aid.

Busi Zulu is Eskom’s head of Planning and Design. She was diagnosed with HIV in January 1996 and has embraced the support systems offered by the company, both at work and at home, and gained sufficient courage and self worth to lead Eskom’s corporate division AIDS Support Group which includes souse support and work-related AIDS issues support.

All of Eskom’s staff is on medical aid, and the coverage is comprehensive; including the cost of ARVs, which Busi started taking twice a day in 2002. Busi, along with Martin, has been active in encouraging people to face up to HIV and AIDS and play an instrumental role in communicating correct and relevant information to those infected. They help them to overcome fears and teach and encourage them to live and embrace life, despite the disease.

Moving away from large companies to smaller organisations who do not have HIV and AIDS programmes in place – what then?

John Ndlovu (not his real name as he fears stigmatisation from his colleagues) works for a small company in a rural area just outside Durban. He discovered that he is infected with HIV only two months ago, and has told only his mother and his employers about his status.

He has not yet found the courage to tell his wife and children for fear of her angry response. In broken English he explained that it was important to him for his employers to understand that he was sick and not just shirking. He admitted that at first he was scared of losing his job, but now he has taken so much time off work due to the illness, that he found the courage to tell his employers in the hope that they would understand when he is not well enough to work.

Although the small company is not able to offer the benefits of counselling and ARVs offered at larger organisations, they have at least been able to offer Ndlovu moral and spiritual support at a time when one can see he is still trying to come to terms with having contracted HIV, and they are encouraging him to eat healthy meals and to visit the counselling centre nearby. – Heartlines Features