Ever the man of letters, Thabo Mbeki did not disappoint last week when he asked us to ponder the meaning of knowledge and its role in building a better society.

Speaking at Stellenbosch University's knowledge management conference - his speech laden with bombast, academic jargon and quotes from Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Donald Rumsfeld - Mbeki was his usual cerebral self.

The former president commended the university for hosting such "a daring" conference, which had a line-up of speakers from academia, NGOs and big business, and was intended to mull over the age-old question of "what is knowledge".

Mbeki said the conference was timely because knowledge, regardless of philosophical debate about its meaning, is critical to building a better society, or "a better life for all", as some would say.

His speech was about "objective truth" and "false knowledge".

The only truth I'm interested in now is how do people who cannot use calculators end up handling billions of our hard-earned money?

How do people who cannot read financial statements end up in positions in which they are the caretakers of our money?

According to the auditor-general, Terence Nombembe, one of the reasons for provincial departments wasting R21-billion of taxpayers' money is because unskilled people and party cadres fill positions of financial responsibility in our provincial departments. The other reason, said Nombembe, was the shortage of people with financial skills in provincial government; those with the skills choose to use them in the private sector, where the pay is much better.

Does this mean that the waste will continue? Will we waste more billions next year - and the next?

It's a lot of money to place in the hands of people who don't have the competencies to manage it, isn't it?

At the conference, Mbeki asked delegates to ponder: What does the "embetterment [sic] of society" mean? I would like to ask our leaders in the government: How does employing people who do not have the requisite financial skills help us in creating a better life for all? How are we going to even talk about creating a better life for all when another province is bankrupt?

Mbeki asked: What knowledge do our decision-makers need to inform them as they strive to achieve such embetterment?

I would like to know "what sort of knowledge our decision-makers have if we can have finance departments filled with unskilled staff in critical positions?

He asked: Who will produce such knowledge? My question is: Who will be brave enough to say, to heck with it, let's spend R5-billion more a year on salaries to attract and retain skilled staff where they are needed - that's preferable to wasting R21-billion of precious public money?

Mbeki pondered: Who will ensure that this knowledge reaches the decision-makers? I ask: Don't the decision-makers have this kind of knowledge already?

He inquired: What possibility is there of guaranteeing the independence of the producers of knowledge, such as universities, so that they enjoy the freedom to produce the objective knowledge all social development needs?

Tell me this: Is the government really interested in real knowledge to create a better life for us no matter where that knowledge comes from?

Mbeki asked: What should be done to ensure that such objective knowledge is propagated, including through the mass media? I would like to know: When the national Treasury is done with Limpopo, will it look at other provinces as well?

It is a tragedy, no, a crime, that our government flushed R21-billion down the drain when, sometimes, it takes as little as R500 to change the life of a South African.