In the absence of actual honest reliable data about the future, and the past for that matter, financial markets happily resort to rhyming couplets like “Sell in May and Go Away”. Well, that didn’t work this year. Only the people who dabble in the mysterious crypto currencies and other members of this family of chimera instruments would have benefitted from taking that advice.
Those of a masochistic bent might enjoy reading the interview granted by AndrĂ© de Ruyter, the CEO of Eskom, to David Ansara of the Centre for Risk Analysis. The Eskom boss has a refreshing but alarming way of telling it exactly as he sees it and sacred cows are harmed in the process. De Ruyter is not happy with the government requirement that “interposing non-value-adding intermediaries in the process of procurement (because this) inflates cost, … introduces additional risk in terms of potential corrupt practices, and …also slows down our supply chains”. What a lovely euphemism for the phrase - cadre deployment.
In the meantime, the nation’s interposer-in-chief, Ms Mmamoloko Kubayi, who chairs the ANC's economic transformation committee, a government agency in charge of implementing the current version of apartheid, has been speaking. After helpfully revealing that load shedding (aka power failures) were crippling the country's economy, she offered the party's policy conference in July as an opportunity “to help Eskom improve financially and operationally”. What great timing. Financially it would help Eskom a great deal if Ms Kubayi’s committee could get municipalities to settle their massive debts to the utility. And operationally? Well, why not tell South Africans that acts of sabotage in the power stations must stop?
Many years ago, the respected market analyst named Richard Russel, wrote a wonderful piece about the service to investors that would have resulted from someone telling the Wright Brothers that there was no future in flying machines. Russel’s thesis was that because of Wilbur and Orville, airlines came into being, and these businesses have consistently and spectacularly destroyed investor wealth. The Comair stable of the local arm of British Airways and Kulula are merely the latest in a long line of disappointments. There probably are exceptions but business school archives must be stuffed with analyses about why investing in moving passengers by air is normally a bad business. Nevertheless, there seems always to be a queue of bright eyed hopefuls ready to take on the task of managing what inevitably appears to be a lethal mixture of a very wide range of staff skills, an inventory of very costly and complex machinery, an ever present and vigilant regulatory bureaucracy, and a consumables bill exposed to one of the most price volatile items on the planet. And then there are the passengers, some still filled with expectations about the excitement and romance of air travel. Richard was very prescient.
The rather unfortunate outcome of the UCR quarter final line up this weekend is that only two of the three SA teams that reached this stage have any chance of becoming semi-finalists. Obviously the pairing of the Bulls and the Sharks, in the early match tomorrow, means only one will move through. A background irritation to this tournament for local fans is that our government is still of the view that having more than half the spectator seats filled at a sports event poses a health risk. A very popular sport this weekend in London is “Spot the Duke” The occasion of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has caused a gathering of the Royal Family. Because of various choices and indiscretions in the recent past some members are now dubbed “non-working” and not on display. But as every celebrity comes to learn there is no limit to the power of today’s camera lenses and some of these miscreants have been snapped deep inside the palaces where the celebrants are gathering. Sadly the Queen herself is not well but nevertheless seems to be enjoying the party in her honour.
James Greener
Friday 3rd June, 2022.
