WHERE DID SARS FIND SO MUCH MONEY?

There are quite a few signs that interest rates here in SA are uncomfortably low and that money is a bit cheap. The ability of all tiers of government to collect revenue is under threat from many sides. Quite simply most citizens simply don’t have the money with which to pay the rates and tax bills being presented. PAYE is a major tax collection method and with fewer people “E-ing”, less of that tax is being collected. Next, the featherbedding of civil servants throughout the Covid calamity has reduced their already awful productivity levels and people are rebelling against paying for services unrendered. The “working from home” model, even for private enterprise, rarely meets all client expectations. And then of course the unashamedly blatant uncontrolled blight of theft and corruption has hollowed out the intentions and goodwill of many of the diligent citizens left standing. Tidemarks ceaselessly chunters on about the urgent need of the public service to reduce expenditure and give the poor dead horse named Taxes a break from flogging. Without that, there is mothing else left but to borrow. Which pushes interest rates up. Recently our government dragged the Minister of Finance away from his stove to rearrange the budget for the rest of the fiscal year. He was instructed to find yet more money to keep SAA alive. This demonstrated clearly that the state rated resuscitation efforts on a moribund and unlamented state asset(?) above things like buying enough Covid vaccine to get the nation back to work. This week a confirmation of this appalling choice of priorities fell dreadfully flat. The special SAA flight, assigned to fly to Brussels to collect a second rather paltry batch of vaccine was grounded for some kind of compliance reason and sat on the runway at ORT with full tanks, forbidden to take off. Another airline brought the stuff in and President Cyril manned up for one of the first jabs. Meanwhile the first batch of a vaccine made in India, which a couple of weeks ago merited its own reception committee of a platoon of politicians, poltroons, and parasols, has been deemed unfit for purpose and too close to expiry to be used on our people. Attempts to return it to the seller for a full refund are so far unsuccessful. You’d have hoped a call to the Guptas might have been useful. Unfortunately, this country has bad form in trying to turn medical events into musical comedy, but one feels that there is a blockbuster in this story somewhere. The sequel is already writing itself in the news that President Squirrel has asked the Minister of Higher Education to “put together a team of scientists to begin the process of developing our own vaccines to deal with this and future pandemics.” “Cadres in Camouflage” is another operetta in need of a score. The story of young people, desperate for a proper paying job and a sense of worth, who dress up in camouflage uniforms, call themselves Veterans and find venues at which to dance and act out their faux military manoeuvres in the dark. This week they pitched to “defend” ex-president Zuma as he hangs out in his palace in Nkandla ignoring orders to come and chat to the headmaster. Another batch camped out in Bloemfontein for an overnight vigil in support of a senior party member who is due in court there sometime. So much energy. So poorly developed and directed. Shame on you ANC. The folk at National Treasury deserved to pop open a bottle of something fizzy a few weeks ago when they reported an all-time monthly record revenue collection of R180bn. This was the December figure, and it was even R11bn greater that the expenditure of R169bn.The was the first monthly surplus since June last year! Well done. Tennis, which for ever has probably been the sport with one of the highest umpires to player ratios has used the virus as a reason to ship in the technology and ditch all but one of the on-court officials. Reportedly there have been few complaints about errors. Meanwhile the unsafe tackle law in rugby is proving contentious. James Greener Friday 19th February 2021