Give that man a Bell’s

Here’s a Friday-feel-good story for you all, executive chairman and CEO of Richemont, Johann Rupert, took home €3.6 million for the year and instead of buying a new yacht or diamond-infused body lotion he promptly donated it to charity.

Rupert’s salary was slightly down from last year’s €3.9 million, but that didn’t stop him from giving it all back to worthy causes. This is not the first time he taken such measures and certainly not the last as his “salaries and benefit payments…are traditionally donated to charity.”

Even so, you can’t make everyone happy. The executive director of Impumelelo, which looks to reward excellence in the Public Sector, Rhoda Kadalie commended Rupert’s efforts but feels more should be done.

“One cannot just throw money at a problem. It would make a difference to SA if big companies set aside money in a fund to address a structural problem ,” she said yesterday.

“The government, NGOs, corporate SA and philanthropists need to sit down together to find organisations that make a difference and fund them. We do not have to reinvent the wheel, there are already projects that are effective, we need to fund those.”

Haters Dislikers gonna hate dislike.

Either way, isn’t it the gesture that really counts? That instead of attaching a few more cars to the gravy train, some of the gravy was spread around? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[Source: Business Day]