One day we
will learn the details of the deal that was struck in the wee hours of a
December night at the ANC National Conference in 2017. The following day Cyril Ramaphosa
was elected president of the party, and thereafter became President of the
country. This was a massive surprise to many, including ex-president Zuma, who seemed
confident that his ex-wife would land the job. Nevertheless, the elevation of this
supposedly highly successful and very wealthy businessman, with a penchant for
breeding buffalos, was greeted with relief and joy by equally many others. Sadly,
whatever restrictions and conditions formed part of that alleged deal, his behaviour
as President have revealed him to be a true politician, tailoring his views to
his audience. Yesterday, despite explaining to another meeting just weeks ago
that it was impossible, he announced that the Reserve Bank will soon be
nationalised. In the context of the extreme socialist policies espoused by his
government, this is not good. Already the motor mouths are going on about the
Bank “creating” jobs.
Sadly, by the
time you get to read this you will be too late to attend the National Launch of
the Good Green Deeds Programme which happened this morning in East London. Despite
his very full diary President Cyril will be there, Very laudably the programme
is “aimed at changing behaviour towards littering, illegal dumping and towards
waste in general”. Without denigrating in any way this program and its aims,
one does wonder why our leaders don’t first just enforce the already quite
severe existing laws about where and how one can throw stuff away. Beverage
cans and fast food packaging are the nation’s main indicator of population
density showing that previous campaigns like the decades old “Zap it in a Zibi
Can” never made an impact. It would
probably also be worth testing if putting even a tiny value on virtually any
type of waste will attract the attention of the frighteningly large number of
people who scavenge for a living. The fact that scrap metal and cardboard
packaging is so quickly retrieved from domestic rubbish awaiting collection
must be a guideline.
The legal eagles
are ringing up satisfying fee-notes as the unending squabble of who was in
charge at Eskom when it did the bad stuff, stumbles on. Now it seems that the
Eskom folk who arranged the R25bn loan from the Chinese are calling for help
too. Given that Eskom has convinced the regulator to approve a sequence of eye-watering
double-digit price increases just to keep the lights on, it seems repayment of
the loan on time is in jeopardy. The lender has a reputation for getting upset
when this happens. This is a distinct case of homeward bound chickens looking
for their roost and tax payers are on the floor level of the coop.
The most
recent National Treasury publication of how things are going in the collection
of revenue and the allocation of disbursements was as usual released right on
schedule. It revealed a record 12-month period deficit of R226bn as tax revenue
slipped, but government spending remained doggedly robust. Undoubtedly the revised
targets for these two important accounting totals announced in the recent
Budget are hopelessly unattainable and reality must soon dawn. On the income
side the proportion of a compliant law-abiding individual’s income that is collected
by the government is nearly 50% but the numbers and wealth of the few members
of that species are diminishing daily. The only lever left to tug is expenditure
and President Cyril needs savagely to trim his payroll, while insisting on
massive improvements in productivity from the survivors. He has a big problem on
his hands and needs to start ignoring what ever that midnight deal required,
Yet another
feast of oval ball sport for 15s and 7s, plus round ball stuff on TV this
weekend. Did you see the size of the UEFA Champions League trophy that was brought
out to SA for a spot of sun and beach time? That needs a first-class seat all
its own! And of course, the Proteas have an ODI series to wrap up.
James
Greener
Friday 8th
March 2019 International Women's Day
