Those of us clinging to the quaint colonial notion of a calendar will have noted with alarm that we are now in the final quarter of the year and October has in the past often handed investors a wakeup call. Not only has the All Share index suddenly given up trying to stay north of 25 000 but the rand also seems to have lost interest in pursuing its recent bout of heroics. In the last week there was a rash of June year end companies reporting and very few of them had good news or even a dividend for their shareholders. The government similarly has admitted that it is collecting far less money that it is spending and suddenly there is muttering about the need to increase tax rates. Please have a look at the spending side of the book too chaps. For example it would help if polygamous city managers were prevented from spending more than half a million of public money on funerals for ex-mayors.
Another bureaucrat in the person of the frighteningly foolish Youth League leader sadly persisted in revisiting the recent appalling developments in SA athletics. Apparently his home language has no word for the tragic medical status of the young athlete and so it can not be considered to exist. Without a similar rejection of terms and items like car, plane, cell phone, executive lounge and Johnny Walker Blue, none of which existed in any language not very long ago, might I suggest his position is inconsistent? Sponsorship for commercial advantage is clearly also a difficult concept for the man.
Over at FIFA headquarters they have been cracking open the single malts to toast their court victory over the retailer who was found guilty of selling lollipops with an unauthorised picture of a football on it. The same court has also been asked to force the hitherto rather unknown Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims to pronounce its position on one inkosi Melizwe Dlamini’s claim to “be recognised as a king and for his clan's lands (in southern KwaZulu-Natal) to be declared a kingdom”. Opposition to the claim is coming from the existing king who already has a kingdom hereabouts. Most taxpayers I think also have little need for another king and dispensing with that Commission itself should save a bit too. Despite all the organisations in the country that have been set up to govern every aspect of our lives, South Africa has shamefully slipped to ninth place in the continent’s governance ratings. Where the continent stands on the global ranking was not mentioned, but top is unlikely. Pretty soon a talking head will reject the findings as imperialist and demand a commission to investigate the problem.
In the meanwhile, as ever, the real problem is crime and the latest official response has been to sanction the use of shoot-outs to control criminal numbers. One difficulty with this proposal is that the good guys appear to be out gunned! I would be interested to know what the experienced working policemen at the sharp end of this business would like to do. The apparent increase in the number of crooks using weapons that once belonged to the police and army, indicate that the drive to control firearms by imposing exams and inspections on gun owners has failed completely. Similarly the five yearly renewals of driver’s licences have done nothing to reduce traffic accidents.
The Proteas, however, did their bit for reducing traffic congestion in Gauteng this weekend by ensuring that they were not in either the semis or the final of the ICC Champions Trophy. Their sponsor must also be having doubts.
James Greener
2nd October 2009.
