LOSS MAKER IMPOSES LOAD SHEDDING

Through a careful choice of news channels, internet feeds and commentators which match one’s own prejudices it is easy to become paralysed with fear and despair about what is happening to our poor country. To conclude that the nation is going to hell in a handbasket is the sole possible forecast.    And then you sneak a peek at the rand exchange rate – effectively the share price of the nation that’s probably quite difficult to rig for long periods of time -- and the dark clouds lift. Well they lift a little bit, enough to prompt a recalibration of the gloom meter. Since early September, the rand has improved by well over 10% against the pound, dollar, yen and euro. This contrasts with the period starting in February immediately following President Cyril’s elevation to the Presidency, when it was only against the dollar that the rand showed any optimism. Suffice to say its different this time (actually, it is always different) and just maybe the range of people who are starting to be optimistic is getting larger.

Most parliaments have members who are colourful, controversial and cuckoo. Generally, they have little real support from the voters, but the proportional representation model confers rather too much apparent legitimacy to our own brand of crazy populists. However, Julius Malema, who styles himself as Commander in Chief (apparently more egalitarian than president or chairman) of his EFF party, is suddenly bumping up against the press freedom we still enjoy in South Africa. He, his cronies and family are being exposed almost daily as likely to be involved in one corrupt scheme after another. Virtually their sole response is to vilify the investigators and publishers of these allegations, Although South Africa is a very unequal country as regards to wealth distribution, the numbers indicate that there very few folks without a mobile phone and this ensures the rapid and widespread dissemination of stories both good and bad, true and false. Today’s politicians look back longingly to the good old days when one’s mates owned the important newspapers and there were just a few noisy fringe publications that could easily be ignored or growled at. Today, anyone with a story and a Twitter account can make embarrassing accusations.

In the meantime, NASA has quietly landed yet more hardware on the Red Planet. This one won’t trundle about but is equipped to probe its immediate surroundings in depth. So far, the anti-mining activists haven’t noticed this desecration of the pristine Martian desert. Perhaps because the trigger word “fracking” has not been mentioned. That aside, it is still an amazing achievement for a nation whose own cuckoo is top dog.

There is something hugely ironic about the sudden preoccupation with who has and who hasn’t got “a degree”.  Especially when juxtaposed alongside stories about how many fake degrees there are and how supremely corrupt and incompetent even those with proper ones, can be. And the reverse.

The boss man of Eskom has reported casually that the nation’s electricity utility is “locked in a permanent loss-making position”. This is alarming news. Naturally it’s not his fault nor the result of poor decisions by any of his half dozen predecessors, most of whom occupied the corner office only long enough to find out how the taps worked in the executive wash room. And to arrange the pension plan. Most of the readers of this letter (with one notable exception) have scant knowledge of how to balance the books at Megawatt Park (a clever name really). But those with time on their hands and the interim financials on their lap will note that while the annual cost of finance is around R15bn, this is considerably lower than the R17bn which the municipalities owe the utility for power consumed. Doesn’t this have the makings of a solution?  

The headline says that the ancient Irish sport of hurling has been awarded heritage status by UNESCO. Well that’s very nice for the Irish but presumably what that means is that the super bureaucrats at the UN will supervise other people’s money flowing from non-hurlers to hurlers. Why? What about England’s no-arms tackling technique in rugby? That’s nearing heritage status.

James Greener

Friday 30^th November 2018

GONE SHOPPING

Armistice Day has a special meaning and poignancy for those of us of a certain age and upbringing. This centenary one was particularly moving. It was also quite a shock to realise how little this sort of event means to most people, even those whose homelands and cultures were preserved by the sacrifice of so many young lives. The passage of time makes most things that happened long ago seem irrelevant. One exception to this is the arrival of a small party of Hollanders in Table Bay over 300 years ago who are being blamed for current events. It matters not a jot to the zealots that this landing and all the history that followed needs to be understood in the context of the times in which they occurred. It is further alarming that campaigns of denial and rewriting of historical facts are becoming so successful. A nation that seems to welcome and admire intellectual impoverishment and blatant dishonesty is in deep trouble when it comes to raising its citizens to the levels needed to compete for the wealth and rewards of the modern world. Many of our competitors survived far worse events than Jan van Riebeek wading through the shallows of the South Atlantic.

The Chinese, who have had their fair share of bad leaders with axes to grind, have a very different use for November 11^th. Rewritten as 11.11 and named Singles Day, their merchants have worked hard to get the population to treat it as day to go shopping on an epic scale. Reportedly it is highly successful and now dwarfs similar opportunistic reasons to get out and buy stuff. Even here in SA we are exhorted to wield the credit card on Black Friday. Heaven knows, our retailers desperately need to see customers thronging their stores and carting goods out of the front door (after first paying for it – an often-forgotten part of the transaction in these days of entitlement). Although Google offers at least two reasons for the name Black Friday, how long will it be before some fragile ego is threatened by the name and organises a protest and burns down a store (or a clinic or a library) just to show how really offended they are?

This sort of response from mobs, however, must be based on unimaginable levels of frustration and desperation at realising that they will never receive an effective education, never find work and be unable to live a family-based life in the comfort that their efforts could provide. On top of this is the awareness that not one of the people shouting at them through a poor sound system in a dusty tent or hall will do anything to help them after they slide away behind a phalanx of costly body guards,

How many individuals with interesting and explosive tales to tell about their recent political life in SA are there waiting in the wings to tell their story? The #metoo Twitter tag was coined for a very different purpose apparently but seems perfectly suited to this trickle of disillusioned castoffs from the political stage. Despite the impeccable credentials of a struggle hero, Barbara Hogan told JZ what he didn’t want to hear, and she was quickly out of the door. This perhaps is the most soul-destroying aspect of living in SA: The total refusal by the decision makers to accept (or even debate) fact-based ideas.

As we have remarked before, the kiss and make up spell between the SABC and the national soccer body was short lived. The former has no money to spend on what licence-fee payers (who are they?) want to watch and the latter have a vastly inflated view of what their ball-hoofers are worth. The broadcasters muddied the water somewhat with odd stories about their fourteen-million-rand celebration party while coping with employee complaints about the withdrawal of a free biscuit ration. Like SAA, this outfit needs to be sold immediately.

Tidemarks will not appear next week as not only is it my 70^th birthday but also I am attending a very select reunion of those of us who left Prep in 1961. By the way, I don’t especially celebrate multiples of ten. I prefer to mark the attainment of prime numbers. There are more of them in the early years.

James Greener

Friday 16^th November 2018

Arma virumque cano [1]

Investment decisions aren’t easy. The US mid-term election results revealed that the voters of that nation rather like the idea of a government that plays Robin Hood. They have voted for Representatives who claim that they are able to identify whose resources need to be transferred to whom. And this has caused US share prices to rise strongly. Not the expected consequence of rejecting the party that wants lower taxes. Tellingly though, the more sceptical US bond market hasn’t moved much at all.

Astonishingly, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has said something undoubtedly truthful. He said that no one wants him to be president. And we also don’t want him anywhere in government and particularly he should never be in any post which accords him the privilege of using the VVIP terminal at Johannesburg International Airport that he agreed could be built, but now can’t remember doing so.

What is not true though is the insistence that South Africa needs more people with PhDs. Science and Technology Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, whose own CV is devoid of a science degree at any level, quotes the National Development Plan as identifying the shortage of PhDs in the country as contributing to (the) lack of innovation. While perhaps now it is a little different, registering for a doctoral degree is normally an indication that the candidate is very comfortable in academia and had scored funding for another 3 years indulging their interests. They will definitely not be taught innovation! As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention and sending people out to find or make a career as soon after school as possible will be a far greater spur to innovation than being nestled in the bosom of some leafy campus.

Despite being embarrassingly colonialist we still cling to the practice of seating the people’s representatives in a debating chamber and letting them demonstrate publicly their fitness for public office. This is a rare skill and civilised behaviour is even rarer, so this system doesn’t seem to work that well anywhere in the world. In Cape Town, insult and fisticuffs are increasingly the outcome. Ever since the Speaker of the House allowed the dress standards to fall to abysmal levels the business of Parliament is frequently interrupted by violence. The EFF have been very successful in creating a very visible presence far beyond their numbers by dressing in red overalls – the garb of “the working people” -- and demanding to be admitted.  It has yet to be demonstrated that anyone other than those drawing an MP’s salary thinks that the nation is getting value for money from these thugs. Notably not even the ANC members nor two different presidents have done much to restore any dignity or productivity to the proceedings.

And so it is very disappointing to read about the formation of yet another political party in South Africa, To be named the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party it is the political wing of The National Union of Metalworkers of SA. Their presumption that the members of the union will also become voters for the party may be optimistic. It’s getting rather crowded out there in the left-wing political landscape occupied by folk who still fervently believe that there are sufficient numbers of rich people capable of supporting the poor. After, of course, firstly supporting the leaders of the poor.

The new political buzz word is “trajectory” and the founders of this new party are amongst those who are dissatisfied with the one that President Cyril is following. Now that our election date has been set for May 2019 we will be treated to lots of rhetoric about trajectories. So much more modern and thrusting than policies or manifestos. 

Apparently, the reason why the test in France kicks off so late is that there are too few TV channels in the country to show different sports simultaneously. ‘bok fans will be eager to learn if referee Nigel Owens shares the view that the now notorious Farrell armless tackle is legal. A video doing the rounds this week shows coach Rassie Erasmus showing members of our team how it is done. It’s a very funny spoof and maybe more effective than a citing.

James Greener

Friday 9^th November 2018

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[1] Virgil's Aeneid,  “Of arms and the man I sing")