The rand has continued to weaken this week. Oddly enough, despite Australia’s quite dreadful weather woes which are hampering their mineral exports, the rand has suffered a particular mauling of almost 5% against that nation’s currency in the past few days. While January was characterised by share prices falling under the pressure of foreign selling, resources in particular have rebounded strongly this month. Presumably it is local interest that has pushed even some of the large cap shares up nearly 10%.
Then there was the news about how the Chinese may be interested in coming along not only to buy our minerals but also to repair and install the infrastructure that will enable them to ship the stuff out efficiently and speedily. Pretoria-watchers are wondering how this will fit in with the state’s grand, laudable but so far unimplemented local beneficiation plans. I too am puzzled what one can do with coal other than burn it.
Similarly the fine folk of the Karoo are getting very worked up about natural gas exploration companies sniffing around their koppies and sheep. I once worked for Soekor, the state owned exploration company which did a lot of geophysics and some drilling in that part of the world. They certainly established that there are some reserves of oil and gas in particular geological layers pretty deep below the surface of that lonely landscape. However the geology of the zones was such that a “gusher” was never going to happen – the stuff could just not flow into the boreholes fast enough; hence the current talk of using artificial methods to improve what is called the permeability of the rock. Unless the technology has changed radically these methods do not require huge volumes of water nor is there a significant risk of contaminating the much shallower aquifers. Since we all rather like driving and flying and using the myriad goods and benefits of the liquid fuels that are sourced from oil and gas I think we ought to let these newcomers try their hand at doing better than we did. But they need to be reminded that Africa is not for sissies.
Did you see that one of the requirements of applicants to fill the Telkom CEO vacancy is that they must have “extensive profit and loss experience …” Yup.
The suggestion that like Germany in the EU, South Africa may need to bail out ailing neighbours Lesotho and Swaziland is very alarming. The political, social and economic implications of such a development are staggering. It is definitely time for the tax man to lose my file. I also really object to any of my money being used to pay R140m to a team of creative posers for a new slogan for the country that actually turns out to be second hand. My (free) suggestion appears at the top of the page.
Meanwhile other people with time to spare have been expressing opinions on the appropriate serving dish for sushi. It seems that wealthy young men are now eating their raw fish and seaweed delicacies off underdressed young women who in turn are draped across expensive sports cars. Some have termed this practice disrespectful on a number of layers. I can’t see why myself. It certainly saves on the washing up.
A more important topic also receiving a lot of attention is the one of getting people employed. Union leaders are convinced that the state should be the employer of last resort. Comparing this view with the report that already one in eight South Africans works for the public sector and on average earn 44% more than employees in the private sector, suggests that the unionists need to do some simple arithmetic before they go much further.
I am not at all sure what the Neo Africa Tri-Series is, but if it delivers results like Lions 41, Sharks 10 it is obviously worth paying attention to.
James Greener
4th February 2011
