Mumblings on
the internet suggest that Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is quite disgruntled
with the way the governance of the country has slipped into a state of mystery
with a powerful and probably unconstitutional structure apparently calling the
shots and blatantly ignoring cabinet members including the President. It’s
alarming that NDZ is now quite often referred to as our Prime Minister. A post
last held by P W Botha. Remember him?
Tito alone
seems to have the mathematical skills to subtract income from expenditure to
obtain the measure of the depth of trouble the government finances are in.
Which is deep. But no one seems to want to listen. The fact that the treasury
is still (just) collecting some money is all that matters, as the looters
jostle to get their sticky paws on it before it disappears to pay interest to
the lenders and social grants to the ungrateful voters. While perhaps millions
of South Africans have lost their income and jobs due to the lock down, not one
civil servant has lost anything. Yet.
Meanwhile this
week Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago cut the official interest rate by
another half percent to its lowest level in living memory. The motivation for this move is to encourage
borrowers to take the cheap cash and spend it. This is not obviously happening
though, as everyone is very wary of the unprecedented social and economic
developments around the world and not just at home. The flipside of course is that lenders have
taken a cut of at least a third in their annual interest receipts and this will
also impact tax collections as well.
The
government has tabled their plans for the dreadfully messy and complicated task
of reopening the schools after the lock down. As Tidemarks has discussed before,
education is a topic in which everyone has an expert opinion, having themselves
once upon a time been at a school. Advice, therefore, is not lacking, and
gratifyingly neither yet is money. Private enterprise has come to the party in
size with resources to help in the very first phase which is to clean and
disinfect school premises. The next part, which is to get teachers and pupils
to return to their posts is going to be much harder, as it contradicts the
mantra of so-called social distancing that has become the keystone of our recent
lives and we are also now experts in virology. To help with all the
difficulties that might arise in Gauteng, the education department there has
begun the task of selecting 7000 unemployed young (18 to 35 years old!) people
to assist the school authorities and government offices with “screening, data
capture and monitoring compliance”. and although they will be trained and paid
a stipend they are not employed and will be “let go” when the crisis passes. Oh
yes? Naming them the “Youth Brigade” is vaguely disquieting.
In February
this year, an advertisement was published in the press by the Municipal Manager
of the King Cetshwayo District Municipality. This was headed “Development of
the District Development Agency” and appeared to be a consequence of a
resolution made by the Municipal Council in June 2019 and simply told readers
of the intention to develop a District Development Agency. The advertisement
also set a quite short deadline for written submissions but neglected to say on
what topic. The long delay between the council meeting and the appearance of
this apparent request for help suggests that the officials also are unsure how
to develop a Development Agency. Presumably, like the tens of thousands of other
governmental schemes, it will simply channel public money to deserving entities
that the Agency alone have the skills (and extended families) to identify. That
is if there is any money left after the developers of the Development Agency
have submitted their fee note.
SPORT
SECTION. In a new twist to the ongoing saga involving the abaThembu nation in
the Eastern Cape, a faction of the royal family wants all six of King
Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s children to undergo paternity tests. Presumably this
is expected to whittle down the list of heirs and boot out the mountebanks.
Entertaining maybe, but surely there are very few dynasties or royal families
anywhere in the world that would willingly submit to that sort of
investigation?
James
Greener
Friday 22nd
May 2020
