Sport

ies like Imperial, CMH and Barloworld that were initially gung-ho for the scrap abandoned the cause months in.

“That was shocking — and it is still shocking, because business is missing in action when it comes to challenging the government when it gets things badly w r o ng ,” he says.

Take, for example, the disaster that is Du r b a n ’s sewage problem.

Why, asks Duvenage, have large hotel groups been so quiet over a wreck that will cost the KwaZulu-Natal economy millions in lost tourist revenue?

Part of the reason, he believes, is that industry bodies like national trade association for hospitality industry Fedhasa have been severely weakened thanks to the withdrawal of big companies in recent times.

Th at ’s to everyone’s detriment, argues Duvenage, who believes strong industry bodies have to stand up to the government when the state gets it wrong. “Th e Tourism Business Council doesn’t like to challenge the government, and we don’t understand why,” he adds.

The simplest reason may be the gove r n me nt ’s multibillion-rand annual procurement bill.

But, says Duvenage, corporates “ are also the other side of the corruption coin: the government spends a lot of money on infrastructure, for example, but much of it is wasted because there are so many middlemen who impose facilitation fees, which many businesses disguise as business development or consultants’ fe e s ” .

In OUTA’s case, more support from major companies would ramp up its budget to employ staff and take on cases. At the moment it draws about R3.5m a month from 22,000 debit orders — mo s t of them in the region of just R150 each.

Tackling Dudu Myeni At any one time OUTA has about 30 projects on the go — it ’s worked through 230 since it began. This includes work on parliamentary accountability, the delinquent directorship case it won against former SAA chair Dudu Myeni and the court case to stop energy regulator Nersa granting Karpowership a licence.

It also stopped the Guptas from taking R1.8bn out of the country in the Tegeta rehabilitation fund matter: “We had to do Gwede [Mantashe’s] job there because [the government was] doing nothing.”

But Duvenage says even the mediumsized firms have shied away from supporting OUTA. “When I say to business: ‘If t he r e’s an organisation like OUTA that’ s challenging corruption and waste oftaxp ay e r s ’ money — is it important to you?’ They all agree, and they all like it. And we say: ‘OK, here’s the “join now” bu t t o n ’ . But they just somehow don’t get around to doing it.”

If they don’t support the civil activists, he adds, there may, soon enough, not be a country to do business in.

Duvenage is now 62, but says he feels 42, given how invigorated he is by the mission. While it’s frustrating to turn away cases for want of resources, OUTA still energises him.

Paraphrasing Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, he says: “The biggest mistake is made by those who give nothing because they feel they can give only a l it t le .”

Some people think their R150 won’t make a difference, so they don’t bother donating. “If everyone thought that way we would have to close OUTA down,” Duvenage says. x

KOL I S I ’S YIN TO RASSIE’S YA NG

The Bok captain’ s performance this year has been high class at the breakdown and in the feared Springbok rolling maul, where the dark arts of the game are p ra c t i s e d

Archie Henderson

or all the World Cup glory of

F2019, this year was Siya Kolisi’ s best in Test rugby. Today his leadership of the Springboks is firmly established, his level of performance, on and off the field, is widely admired and for once he was never second-g uessed.

The questioning of a player’s ability to lead is part of the baggage that comes with the Springbok captaincy.

Francois Pienaar was often compared unfavourably with a rival, Tiaan Strauss, and John Smit with Bismarck du Plessis. In the week of the 2019 Rugby World Cup final, one renowned critic, former England flyhalf Stuart Barnes, even suggested that Kolisi did not deserve his place in the Springbok starting team.

Yet all three of those Springbok captains went on to win world cups.

This year, in spite of only a 50% winning percentage, Kolisi’s place in the Bok team was unquestioned, the usual baying mob dead quiet. If his play has not been as spectacular as, say, that of Kurt-Lee Arendse on the wing, it has been high class at the breakdown and in the feared Springbok rolling maul, where the dark arts of the game are practised.

In defence — an element for which