TEE-OFF TIME

What this nation needs to do is to find a wayto remove from all elected officials and their attending bureaucrats the power to do almost everything. In particular they must be banned from renaming things and shopping for cars unless paid for by themselves. As one clever fellow has already commented; he is sure that Winnie Mandela saw her legacy as being far grander than to be attached to a rather disappointing dorpie in the Free State. A particularly annoying development in the last few years is the renaming of municipalities and districts after deceased worthies. Losing any indication of just whereabouts the place being discussed may be in this large and beautiful land has been an unnecessary cost and inefficiency burden. While certainly achieving its primary objective of irritating old white people, it is doubtful if it has raised the profile or historical significance of the honourees in any way. The world is funny like that. The most recognisable t-shirt decoration on the planet is the face of a long dead deeply unpleasant Marxist revolutionary who didn’t really make anyone’s existence much happier. It feels as if we are being treated to a rerun of the Schabir Shaik comedy show. This was when Jacob Zuma’s spectacularly incompetent alleged financial advisor was released from jail after being convicted of fraud in 2005. It was claimed that he was terminally ill, and it would show great compassion if he could be released to let him run his life’s short course in the bosom of his family. It turned out that the consulting medics were referring to a golf course and the diagnosed deadly disease has responded to this treatment magnificently. Zuma has obviously taken advice from his old chum and has also now obtained a medical opinion which has released him from his prison cell where he has about a dozen months of his sentence for contempt of court still to run. A puzzling aspect of our previous president’s circumstances is that despite having a large extended family of wives and offspring, all news about his condition is jealously and secretly handled by The Jacob Zuma Foundation (an educational organisation). It is therefore unknown if he has yet purchased a set of golf clubs. Mere days after some sort of ludicrous handing-over milestone by the contractors to Eskom (the owner and operator) of the near decade-overdue Medupi power station, a big section of it blew up! Fortunately, no one was injured – maybe because there were no qualified staff around at the time? But the news has been delivered with sorrowful downcast head shaking and the equally ludicrous claim that it won’t have much effect on the nation’s power supplies. Sadly, given the incredible cost overrun of this project this is not a case of saying “Well, you get what you paid for.” For some reason information and data flows from Eskom appear to the layman at least, somewhat opaque and disingenuous. Fortunately, there are numerous highly experienced energy generation specialists with intimate knowledge of this State-Owned Enterprise keen to offer their views. But the fact is that this “Boom!” will have been noticed by everyone needing a stable electricity supply for their business investment location and they may as we speak be dropping S Africa from their list. There is something reassuringly nostalgic and endearingly establishment about the name of Jolidee Matongo, the new mayor of Johannesburg. Not everyone will know or remember the phrase “Jolly d” delivered in a haughty and plummy tone to express satisfaction and encouragement. He is also not short of advice of what to do once established in the top floor corner office. Mine would include booting every mendicant and distant relative back into the street. One particularly obvious lesson learned from the recent rugby test series is that stadia with pitches prepared for soccer are useless for the oval ball game. Even the most shameless footballer’s dive to feign injury does not have the same impact as 1800 kg and 32 studded boots thrusting away on the green sward. Doubtless this is well known amongst groundsmen the world over, but the sports are run by accountants who like the idea of multiple uses for the assets. James Greener Friday 13th August 2021 (International Left Hander’s Day)