The few people who have ploughed their way through the first part of the Zondo report in State Capture are so proud of their efforts that they are telling everyone and so the rest of us needn’t bother. But the fact that not a single steel door has yet slammed on a newly fitted orange jumpsuit tells us what we have all long known. Convicting politicians and their cronies for misusing public funds is nearly impossible. If nothing else, Justice Zondo whimsically separated those who were named in the investigation into three types. The “facilitators”: The “enablers or followers”: and The “resisters”. This seems like a great start. All that’s missing are the Guptas who, we are repeatedly told, will be extradited from Dubai just as soon as someone in that city finds the fax machine to which SAPS sent the extradition request form. And let’s build a bigger court room. A dozen at a time should clean the place up by Christmas.
Many people have been extraordinarily and spectacularly successful in trading the so-called cryptocurrencies which, despite the enticing images of gleaming golden physical Bitcoins and other mythical tokens, simply don’t exist. In fact, part of their attraction, and some would say value, lies in this fact. Provided one can buy them cheap and sell them expensive (or in the last few months, in the reverse order) the intangibility of this “asset” class seems to concern no one. Limitlessly clever analysts churn out research that gravely refer to the “fundamentals” that support their view that these so-called “proof of work” entries in a base will grow in value. Forever. Now human nature just loves stories of great riches reaped and gory implosions suffered by punters playing in markets that they are too scared and/or ignorant to try themselves. In fact, their ephemeral status is the very reason why they are attractive to speculators, investors and shysters alike. Last yea,r futures on crypto assets were launched and the overnight disappearance of “trusted and respected players and brokers” is giving the whole shebang a coating of sleaze and familiarity. The growing interest in “crypto” being shown by the tax collectors show that the promoters and users are right over their target.
There is an undeniable change taking place in almost everyone’s position on Covid. Whether callously deliberate or not we were at first all told to be very afraid. And to trust the science. Increasingly the layman has come to recognize that neither has turned out to be useful strategies. The official enthusiasm for trialling untested lockdown strategies and pharmaceuticals were very hard for many people to align with the two instructions. Also alarming has been the kneejerk censorship of all dissenting opinions, a move which has spawned innumerable alternative communication options. The motives of all the players in this horror movie are being questioned, as egregious profiteering comes to light. Almost without exception, private and public funds earmarked to cover and alleviate the medical, social and economic hardships caused by the pandemic have been plundered. Who exactly are the good guys?
This week it was reported that public servants who took sick leave since the outbreak of Covid have cost the fiscus R14bn. What ever this means, every citizen has experienced the delays caused by the state’s enthusiastic adoption of the risible “working from home” program.
Eskom began the year with a cheerful message to electricity users that they were operating a “Chatbot” to which they could easily report outages.” Further “The Chatbot will generate a reference number should you require to do a follow up.” Sadly, there is no information on what geographic location parameter the Chatbot will recognize. This is only the first of other warnings and indications already seen this year that our power supply could be sketchy in 2022.
And yet despite all this, there are two large South African managed teams in the Dakar Rally. Man, are there rocks in Saudi Arabia! And sand. Plenty plenty sand. Although the victim of virus mania and unable to have a crowd at Newlands the Proteas have done good and once again asked the question why they are not invited to dine with the big three. Mind you some of those teams are dodgy sandpaper wielders, aren’t they?
James Greener
Friday 14th January 2022
