HALF WAY IN 2018

Much to the dismay of many people who have become used to politicians who say one thing and then do nothing, President Trump pretty much does what he says he will do. And what’s even more infuriating for those who believe they can direct and influence public opinion, he utterly ignores their advice. It will take several decades of history before there will be sufficient objectivity and non-partisanship to allow for a clear-eyed summary of whether this man is doing a good or bad job. In the short-term meantime, markets are not thrilled with the man’s latest interference in the sovereign right of Americans to make a quick buck. The bull is certainly not as evident as he has been.

However, back home we have been treated to a textbook illustration of the Margaret Thatcher thesis that the problem with socialism is that governments eventually run out of other people’s money. The much-revered minister Pravin Gordhan, who nevertheless is at heart a socialist, has admitted that he has run out of dosh and ideas with which to fix all the state-owned enterprises. So he called in the private bank bosses and asked for their advice (and of course money). Simultaneously other state luminaries have noted that President Cyril’s overseas mission to drum up USD100bn for investment is SA might perhaps need a bit of local seed money to get moving and a figure of a tenth of the target is being wafted about for local private enterprise to drop into the slotted tin. The difficulty for all potential “investors” is the evidence suggests that the return is not only zero but the capital as well is likely to disappear into the voracious maw of cadre life-style maintenance programs.

It wasn’t very long ago that most of us had never heard of VBS Bank. Then Jacob Zuma found out about it and managed to secure a loan from them to complete the upgrade of his humble abode in Nkandla. Now we are discovering why it was so easy. VBS was an institution that was busy putting the “Cor” into corruption!

The highly emotive issue of land is raising a number of very interesting issues, not least of which are tribal ones. Zulu King Zwelitini is asking all Zulus to chip in R15 a head to help fund law suits and protests to protect from the government what he sees as land belonging to the tribe. This donation suggestion has been trebled from the original fiver because the king has noted the iniquitous level of bank charges for cash deposits. And does this mean that the next census will also pry into each South African’s tribe affiliation?

Apparently, the board of the South African Bureau of Standards has failed its own standards test and minister Red Rob Davies has fired the lot of them. At first (naïve) glance this would seem to be an agency that could be devoid of politics, corruption and sleaze, until one is reminded that they did some work for the Guptas! Something to do with coal quality. So that’s a full house for the ruling party then? Is there a single area within the state’s control where they have improved its operation or capability? What a dire and damning record.

Even the tax collection business is broken. Apparently once a jewel in the crown in respect of its efficiency and probity (really?) SARS was seemingly hollowed out by Jacob Zuma and his cronies seeking to ensure nothing impeded the flow of large sums of money in unusual directions. The impunity and fearlessness with which the laws of the land were bent and ignored is breath-taking.  And deeply saddening.

It is rather embarrassing to admit that I have come to enjoy the massive doses of soccer on the TV from the World Cup. Mostly it’s pretty baffling to a rugby man used to robust encounters and yellow cards that have immediate impact but there is one aspect of that game where rugby could learn. They need urgently to borrow a copy of the FIFA “Guide to Kit and Colour Selection” and so avoid the very confusing incidents where both the teams plus the officials on the pitch are dressed nearly alike. They can however safely ignore the section about what looks like support hose pulled well up into the leg of the shorts. Very unflattering.

James Greener

Friday 29^th July 2018

HEALING POWERS

Short term US interest rates are back up at the levels they were a decade ago when the US Federal Reserve decided it knew better than anyone else how to fix the financial morass caused by people not repaying their loans. They dropped the price of money to almost zero and kept it there for more than half a dozen years. Chroniclers of this period will need of course to point out that banks were foolishly making those loans to obvious deadbeats and to explain the political background of governments spending money they too did not have. How successful all these official interventions were at increasing the welfare of individuals has already spawned trillions of words which fortunately today are stored “in the cloud” instead of sending forests of trees to the paper mill. Inevitably the outcomes were very mixed with contrasts as wide as our ex-minister of sport enjoying private jet travel to Russia to watch a tournament in which SA doesn’t have a presence to the rest of us wondering when and where the next power outage or violent crime incident will take place.

It’s hard to keep these commentaries from becoming a list of failures and corruption. Even the respected minister Pravin Gordhan appears to have managed little more in the Eskom wage debacle than to express the belief that the prolonged load shedding will have a huge negative effect on the already struggling economy. If he needs to spell this out for his colleagues, well…

Health minister Motsoaledi has revisited his Laudable that everyone in SA should be able to get the same level of health care. Is it boring to note that getting to that nirvana must begin from the current system of which he is already in charge and which doesn’t do very good job? Aside from the tired old mantra that “the rich will pay for the poor” he needs to show us his workings on the numbers of qualified specialists, doctors, nurses and other industry workers that the dream entails, where they will be trained and what they will be paid. These figures will undoubtedly show that despite appearances, the rich are woefully incapable of funding such a grandiose dream. Far richer nations than ours are grappling with this sort of problem. It doesn’t help that here our population growth far outstrips our economic one.

There’s an odd story about the T-shirt that we are expected to buy to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 100^th birthday. This apparently simple fund-raising project looks like a rat’s nest of broken pledges and hypocritical deal making. The T-shirt which carries an unfamiliar portrait of a smiling Madiba also carries the words “Embedded in the African DNA”.  This meaningless scientific jargon helps to divert attention from the news that the cloth on which it is printed is cotton that was grown, spun, woven and dyed all in Mauritius, which is deemed to be African on those occasions when it is useful.  Apparently, this offshore production is OK, because the factory on that island is owned by the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Workers there are reportedly paid by output and not by hours worked, a system not encouraged by that union in South Africa.  It is uncertain if they are members of their employer’s union. Further on this theme, has the bickering about who will control and benefit from public access to Mandela’s burial place in Qunu been resolved yet? The good news for those in the running there is that Highgate cemetery in London is now charging visitors to Karl Marx’s grave. A nice capitalist postscript for one of the founders of modern socialism.

This ‘bok strategy of coming from behind after a terrible start is not good for those of us with a heart condition or indeed any Springbok supporter. A convincing win tomorrow for a whitewash series will be very satisfactory. It’s slightly embarrassing to admit that it is quite fun watching the soccer world cup. The back to back immediacy of the tournament which is now at the stage where favourites are being ejected is almost exciting. Also, it’s fascinating to witness how players are able to inflict life-threatening injury on each other with the lightest of touches. Fortunately, most of the victims do also have miraculous powers of recovery soon after they find out that no one, especially the referee, cares very much.

James Greener

Friday 22^nd June 2018

IN THE DARK AGAIN

The allure of high office in politics is a mystery to those of us without the gene that codes for interfering in other peoples lives. President Cyril’s DNA must be packed with the stuff. Why else would anyone want to run South Africa? On top of the dozens of things that are coming off the rails or are already through the fence and upside down in the veld, he this week got a summons from one of our several kings to come and explain himself. The Zulu monarch is as usual very exercised about land and in his view Cyril’s government is thinking naughty thoughts about this topic. To put up with all this for a salary probably no higher than a middle manager at Eskom shows Cyril’s humility and love for the country. But if there is anything he can do to boost the rand at the moment it’s not yet working. Our currency is having a terrible month.  

A headline-grabbing story from the business world illustrates the cause of this nation’s economic woes. That is the government’s policy of specifying who should own, run and trade with a private company. The Vodacom BEE deal is only the latest in that company’s attempts to tick all the boxes and won’t help at all in their mission of supplying cost effective (but profitable) communications on this piece of the planet. Like most deals of this kind it’s bafflingly complex and employs racial and gender exclusive identification of people who are required to be given stuff that not only do they not pay for but in many cases don’t really want. A massive waste of resources that could be far better used by Vodacom’s customers to run and plan their own lives.

Despite not mining very much of this metal, it is reported that South Africa is one of the world’s leading exporters of copper. The suggestion is that the supply comes from the large-scale cable theft that plagues the nation, in particular, the railways who use miles of wiring to connect their signalling systems. If true this is astonishing and hints that like so much crime taking place, such as cash-in-transit heists and farm murders, it is suspected that corrupt  and criminal officialdom is playing a role. A very expensive election campaign is coming up and funds are urgently required.

There isn’t a single metric which doesn’t confirm that Eskom employees are enormously over paid and worse still, that the organisation is massively over-staffed. Reportedly far too few of these employees have much of a clue about electricity generation and distribution. And yet they are on strike in support of a large pay-rise. This stay-away has triggered load-shedding, the polite and non-threatening term for power cuts, which happened in parts of the country just as soccer fans opened the first beer and began a month of hurling advice and invective at their TVs. Poor timing if they seek sympathy?

Zabivaka is the name of the official Soccer World Cup mascot. Supposedly a cool and friendly character with “shades” pushed back onto his head, on inspection he is still a wolf with more than a passing resemblance to President Putin. In the meantime, President Trump’s diplomatic dance in Singapore with the bizarrely coiffed top man in North Korea has set off a firestorm of opinion, ridicule and praise. Some are even suggesting a Nobel Peace prize is in order. But the real award should be an Oscar for the choreographer who staged the dramatic march of the two peacemakers through matching facing colonnades to the meeting spot. Such theatre!

The two big sporting prospects this weekend are both going to be nerve-wracking.  England (and the rest of us) have now seen the ‘bok surprises and test rugby in Bloemfontein in midwinter is rarely fun for anyone. Calling Shinnecock Hills a golf course is rather too kind. It’s already claimed many scalps at the US Open. But both will undoubtedly be more interesting and less embarrassing to watch than 270 minutes a day of soccer from Russia. What a shame Bafana Bafana aren’t there. Just think how much training time they must have spent on their victory dance.

James Greener

15^th June 2018