With the exception of Sterling,
because of course the UK is fighting its own demons, the little old rand is at
its best level in 12 months against most major currencies. Real people (as
opposed to us talking heads) are obviously not concerned by political and
social developments (see below) and are still buying rands in order to do business
here in the sunshine. A similar scenario is unfolding in the USA where despite
the moaning about the new president, the share markets are surging. The Dow
Jones index has cracked above 20 000 for the first time in history. The
JSE all share index is looking set to deliver maybe 5% this month with most of
the heavy lifting being done by resources which are supposed to be reflecting
the global slow down, but obviously aren’t. Bears get only a few opportunities
in a lifetime to be right and this isn’t turning out to be one of them.
The political animal is suffering
from a bad plague of fleas. It is scratching incessantly at every nook and
cranny on its rather mangy body. There are spats, disagreements, protests, and
accusations breaking out everywhere. And the students have yet to reconvene for
the new academic year and get their nonsense under way. It’s a noisy mess. Some
of the fights are inter-ministry affairs where the bad news is that if the
squabble ends up in court, the lawyer’s fee notes for both sides are sent to
the yax-payer. Jaw-dropping claims and
assertions abound, with perhaps the week’s best being that Minister Faith
Muthambi’s “… record of delivery in
digital migration speaks for itself”. Now South Africa is already 18 months
past the internationally agreed deadline for this process, so maybe it’s time for
Faith to change the record.
As usual the details of all these
issues are complicated and assuredly we never get to hear the full story. Nevertheless,
on available information, there are two particularly interesting and worrying battles
to watch at present. The most recent is the claim by some mining houses that
the Mineral Resources department is unreasonable in the exercise of its powers to
close mines in response to certain safety issues. So far claims for revenue
lost due to vexatious closures amount to a few tens of millions of rand. But
government has no intention of coughing up even that relatively small amount of
money, so this will probably be another bonanza for the lawyers.
And then SASSA, the state agency
responsible for the monthly distribution of the critically important social
grants is bickering with …. well, itself! If this state cash hand-out program were to
collapse for even one month the consequences would be dreadful. Despite many of
the inevitable “consultations with stake holders” and the “appointment of task
teams” there is widespread doubt that the transfer of this huge practical task
from the privately-owned Cash Paymaster Services (considered now to be unsuitable)
to SASSA itself will be seamless. Bluntly put there are around 17 million “customers”
for this service and who knows how many pay points. Even the slickest profit-incentivised
organisation (which SASSA is clearly not) would battle with that switch over. April
1st may be more than All Fools day on the SA calendar.
The poor standard of maths in our
schools is showing up in our limited over cricket performance. The rather vital
statistic of runs per over seems a bit of a challenge for lads unaccustomed to
long division. Choosing the best 11 players is also proving to be difficult for
our national selectors. At times their meetings appear to nothing more than taking
slips of paper out of a hat that is filled with names of anyone who has been on
a cricket field in the last dozen years. From beating the Aussies at home the
Proteas have fallen a long way in a short time.
The news is that ‘bok coach, Allister
Coetzee could be fired next week. Bafana Bafana (the soccer ‘boks) fired their
boss last month. Maybe the two could swap jobs. Neither side could do any worse
than they have managed recently.
James
Greener
Friday 27th
January 2017
