So, despite
or maybe because of hosting the dubious and dodgy delegates of the World
Economic Forum our currency has gone all weak again. Share prices too have
slipped a bit. The political landscape is now filled with more booing than a
haunted house. Number One rather cleverly said that this was a sign of a
healthy democracy. Whether he is similarly sanguine about a court’s judgement
that purchase of nuclear power stations from his BRICS chum Vladimir Putin was
unconstitutional, remains to be seen. This venture was set to be a great little
earner for JZ and his mates. The Nkandla homestead is getting rather dilapidated
and the fire pool is leaking so a bit of extra cash would be welcome.
A few weeks ago,
sounds of revelry were heard coming from the nation’s tax collectors. They had
reached their fiscal-year collection target of R1.14 trillion. The swingeing
33% increase in the dividend withholding tax rate had done the job and so it
was high-fives and bubbly all round. National Treasury has just released the
exchequer cash flows for March and it shows that distributions to departments
in the same period totalled R1.32 trillion. This makes deficit around R174
billion, or R477 million a day, every day, for a whole year. That’s not good
news. Neither is the result of some elementary analysis of the figures which
shows that for the first time since 2007/8 the rate of increase in state
spending is getting larger and is about to exceed the growth in revenue. Our
new Minister of Finance is going to have to take off his spiffy coat, roll up
the impeccable sleeves and do some hard work getting every government
department to fire half its staff complement.
Instead he
was here in Durban introducing the WEF to Inclusive Growth. This is the latest
in a family of meaningless catch phrases. It follows Radical Economic
Transformation and White Monopoly Capital as mantras to be used in place of
doing something which could improve the lives of all citizens. What is needed
is many years of economic growth far larger than population growth in which
time the “Inclusive” aspect will take care of itself. Reaching this stage,
however, is never going to be possible while there are Ivory Tower academics
dispensing 100-year old, thoroughly discredited Marxist dogma dressed up as
advice. It’s very disturbing to think that there are still relics like this
teaching in our universities.
The incidents
and difficulties experienced by our own stubborn Big Man, the USA’s maverick
CEO, and the assorted handbag-wielding European big-wigs are all remarkably
similar. In most cases their challenges arise from the incredible inconvenience
and unpredictability of democracy. Everyone has a different view of who “the
people” are and what it is that they demand or need (usually not the same
thing) and so the tensions rise. Domestically, we urgently and desperately need
a return to the rule of law where violent crime is swiftly investigated and
punished. This now deserves a higher priority than either education or health
as the providers of those services are being targeted by criminals. But the biggest
crime wave concerns the under-reported attacks on farmers. These vile murders
clearly play into the (unstated but suspected) government land redistribution
agenda and don’t receive sufficient official condemnation or much policing response.
The presence and
intervention of a wise statesman able to take charge and calm things down are
rare events limited to only a few souls each generation. Here in South Africa
we may have used up our allocation for a long time. It’s not a happy thought.
Three fellows
have been selected by Nike – the sports outfit outfit – to try and run a
marathon in under 2 hours. The report says that they will be “aided by a host
of carefully-managed technological and environmental advances”. Does this mean
they will or will not be allowed to use the magic sweeties allegedly popular
amongst top notch athletes? In this sport, the 3% speed improvement required to
achieve the target is considerable. It will be brutal viewing. South African
Super Rugby sides, however, will need a far larger performance improvement if
they are going to attract their fans back to fill all the vacant seats. Not
even the resurgent Kings are worth the price of a ticket yet.
James
Greener
Friday 5th
May 2017
