For the first
time in a while it was the JSE that swooned while most other markets looked
sprightly and optimistic. Except for Tongaat – the local land baron – most results
this week failed to excite much and some were pretty shocking. It’s hard to
find a business which doesn’t attract the attention of a man from a ministry
who pitches up to tell you that you are doing it wrong and it will cost you
money. Mr Price was just the latest company to have the regulators feel their
collar. Apparently, their strategy for trying to tempt customers into their
stores breaks some law or other. Not a word about the fact that customers like
their stuff and prices.
Meanwhile the
mini bus taxi drivers blockaded the Toyota plant here in Durban to air their
grievance that new busses made in that plant were too expensive, No one would
disagree with that sentiment. It’s true of most new vehicles in SA, but it will
be interesting to see what happens when the assembly plant workers in turn stand
outside the same gates to complain that they are paid too little.
The reminder
of the week is that computers leak very very easily. But it’s not water that
they leak, it’s information. Absolutely nothing that you entrust to the memory
of your computer can be regarded as confidential. Especially if that
information concerns naughty stuff you plan to do. Computers that are connected
to the internet, even if only for a few minutes, are the most compromised. Often
the user is even unaware that such connections has been made. For example, the smart
phone in your pocket is ceaselessly searching for something to connect with and
while you probably enjoy the convenience of its link to the car radio and the
GPS, who else has it found?
But emails
are the nadir of secrecy. One mouse click willingly transfers our words to third
parties whose privacy hygiene practices span the range from OK to lethally toxic.
That SEND button occupies a very special place in the pantheon of remorse. And
it doesn’t help to offer the “fake news” excuse when an inconvenient opinion you
once wrote is published. Only the very
savvy can erase all of their foot prints from the highways of the internet and
so tracing a juicy story back to its origin is often quite simple for the
investigating journalists and (hopefully, in due course) the police. Diligent and
fearless local sleuths have been busy with a massive tranche of recently leaked
emails which exposes more about the Zuma / Gupta relationship. So far, they
reveal the discouraging yet unsurprising news that both the amounts of money
and networks of thieves are larger than previously suspected. Another thing
these leaked emails revealed is how late at night some people work. Time stamps
from the wee hours are not uncommon. It’s obviously hard work buying people and
palaces to make yourself comfortable.
So how then
do you run a country (or indeed anything) if you can’t keep secret the flows of
money in unusual directions. Simple. Don’t do the bad stuff. Just imagine how educated,
healthy and wealthy we would all be if none of the money which has been misallocated
and just plain stolen had not been extracted from taxpayers and consumers in
the first place. But that’s the realm of fantasy and everyone has his or her price.
Whatever did happen to the Kruger Millions, and what about that house in Zug (Switzerland)
that a previously advantaged finance minister moved into? Which raises the
question of whether a nice Zulu chief, like Number One, really wants to live in
a place with no rolling hills, knobthorn trees and cattle kraals.
Sensibly one should
wade through the four- volume set of documents that comprise this nation’s bid
to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup tournament before passing judgement. But it
does seem somewhat excessive One thing is certain, however, the section
that deals with the financial profits for the host will be totally wrong. Once again,
the massive swing in the Proteas’ fortune from one ODI to the next caught the
eye. So too did the suggestion that data from recent matches should be used to
update the parameters in the infamous Duckworth-Lewis formula. Fortunately, it’s
some time since we have been on the wrong side of those two gents, but the
Champions Trophy has started in England. And it does rain there. Unlike at Newlands.
James Greener
Friday 2nd June 2017. 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band.
