I am not sure what all the fuss is about. It’s not as if our own air
force is making much use of Waterkloof Airbase these days. The arrival of a foreign
wide-bodied civilian passenger plane loaded with wedding guests at the military
base must have provided a welcome distraction for the folk who hang about this
National Key Point all day. Except for those planes that are used to ferry
cabinet ministers to junkets, the rest of our air force is reportedly mostly in
mothballs awaiting pilots and fuel allowance. Reportedly this breach in security and absence
of customs controls was unconnected with President JZ’s close friendship with
the family holding the wedding. The scampering for the exits by officials who
claim that they were not involved in the incident is very amusing. Nevertheless,
we must all hope that the bride did enjoy the dream wedding that her father
organised for her. Hopefully she will not be disappointed to learn that the blue
light convoy between Waterkloof and Sun City
might have been escorted by impostors posing as policemen. Presumably they
ignored all traffic rules like proper police anyway.
The European Central bank has decided that the economies of the
region are all in the doldrums because the price of money is too high. Accordingly
it lopped a third off that price and will now charge its clients just 0.5%pa.
The immediate effect of this was that the euro currency declined in value a bit
against other currencies. It will take far longer to reveal whether the rate
cut will trigger a renaissance of business and consumer confidence and activity.
Personally I don’t think the price of money is the biggest problem. I believe
the increasing transfer of risk-taking and decision-making to governments is
dampening personal enterprise and enthusiasm both in Europe
and in many other places. The recent obituaries and memories of the late Baroness
Margaret Thatcher offered a reminder of how the dead hand of bureaucracy needs
to be removed in order to allow growth to happen.
Much has been said about the report that at least R1bn of public
money is stolen each year. This is indeed disgraceful and the real crime is
that the thieves are rarely sought and almost never properly disciplined. The
bright side, however, is that unlike other corrupt regimes the majority of the
cash seems to remain in the country and not disappear into bank accounts in
Lichtenstein and Switzerland.
Our thieves it seems are happy to spend the money locally and that must surly
be a factor in explaining the rather rude and robust health of all types of
consumer consumption statistics. Car sales are up, most stores are reporting
growth and even private schooling demand is strong. Data on the sales of
premium brands of single malts is not easily found but it probably shows that whisky
drinkers are not in danger of dying of thirst. Let’s remind ourselves also that
R1bn is just a tenth of a percent of the state’s budget or around R1 trillion.
The real waste is actually to be found in the regiments of unproductive and
incompetent civil servants drawing a salary.
Whenever tax collectors world-wide gather for their annual
conferences they must set aside a special time for a minute of silence and
contemplation in grateful thanks for the scientists who came up with the thesis
that carbon dioxide is bad for us. Here is a commodity that is ubiquitous and
universal and produced by everyone in huge quantities but apparently really
ought to be controlled. And what better way to control it than by taxing it.
Most of us are pretty hazy on what the stuff actually is; after all it is
colourless, odourless and pretty much weightless. We have no way to challenge
the models and equations that confidently state how much harm we are causing by
going about our daily lives. This week a local tax official even suggested that
carbon dioxide could be responsible for delaying the government’s poverty
reduction plans. There is no limit to the idiocy that a state in desperate need
of money will display.
The Sharks (and the Stormers) are in the Antipodes.
That means that their matches are being played when it is still breakfast time
here. It is difficult to be excited about rugby without a Castle in the hand. I
stopped having Castle for breakfast a few years ago. Pity.
James Greener
World Press Freedom Day 2013
