NO ONE SEEMS THAT ANGRY

Market prices of shares, debt and the currency all fell quite sharply as clear signs that the Eskom developments were very very disappointing. Did President Cyril not have a small twinge of déjà vu yesterday when he set up a “special cabinet committee to deal with the Eskom crisis”. The last time that our national power utility switched out the lights he (then just V-P) was given the job of heading a “war room” to find out what was happening. Obviously, that plan failed to work, and so why it should do so now is unclear. The rest of us know that the problem is simply that there is insufficient electrical engineering knowledge and experience anywhere in the command chain that runs from the chap on the gate at the power station right up to the highest office in the land. Somewhere near the top of this pyramid clings Chairman Jabu Mabuza who seems to be a genial sort of chap with a fine collection of hats. But despite the Wikipedia description of him as an entrepreneur and investor, like most of us, he appears to have almost no clue about running a crucial element of an industrial economy. The most puzzling thing is our collective attitude of complacent resignation at this state of affairs.  The jokes on the internet about the power cuts seem to outnumber the sober assessments that the government’s discriminatory race-based policies are the root cause of this and indeed probably most of our woes.

A superficial analysis of just exactly what the country gains from the foreign travel undertaken by bureaucrats and politicians prompts the idea that everyone fitting this description should be required to surrender their passport immediately. Anyone contemplating an overseas holiday can retrieve the document for the duration of the vacation but only after they have proved that no state funds would be used for the jaunt.  The reasoning is not just to save (lots) of travel allowances but to be sanguine about the value to the nation of sending public servants either to sell or buy stuff. This also includes meetings and conferences, either as a speaker or a listener. Many of our representatives and delegates them are declared communists supposedly hostile to people making a profit, some are embarrassingly unkempt and dishevelled and almost all of them seem oblivious to what is actually taking place in their homeland or indeed their host country. It is time to end shopping sprees dressed up as fact-finding folderol.  Almost no one overseas will miss the South Africans some of whom have an unnatural interest in Fanta[1] while back home we shall watch with interest who still comes to visit us and why.

Meanwhile despite the much-trumpeted extradition treaty agreed with the UAE last year it seems that the police need no longer hang around Joburg International waiting for the incoming Dubai flights. Astonishingly the cases and allegations against the Gupta brothers have now evaporated. So still we wait for the arrest of someone – anyone—who stole all our money.

In those university towns where water saving is currently not a priority, it is puzzling that so little use is made of water cannon to clear the revolting students off the streets. Skilfully directed it could be used to flush out for arrest those individuals whose behaviour has been particularly vile. The insolent individual on a Durban campus this week who called his vice-chancellor a murderer should not escape punishment and the prospect of a career-affecting criminal record for doing so.

Unless one is playing close attention, one may have missed the changeover of sub-continental cricket teams. The Sri Lankans are now playing a test here in Durban and it looks as if once again tickets for day 5 will be useless.  The SuperRugby tournament kicks off today and runs until a final in July. Two months later it’s the World Cup in Japan.  Whew. It will be hard to find a place at the bar of the bowling club this evening as it is also home to many of the Duzi paddlers who now have just one more day to reach the finish. These lads and lasses are terrifyingly fit and thirsty too.

James Greener

Friday 15^th February 2019

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[1] Slang for bribe

SLEEP OVER AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

While there surely are little corners of the markets where investors are either delighted at their skill or fed up with their advisor, the overall market indices have not yet confirmed that the bear is finished. There are more reasons to be defensive and conservative than to be fully invested in risk assets. An interesting aspect of the situation is that in both America and Europe there are huge potentially market-disruptive events taking place. America has a President with a unique attitude and style while Europeans are confused about whether having more government is a good or a bad thing. On both sides of the pond those who simply ignore politics and get on with what they do best seem to be thriving.

It seems to be dawning on President Cyril that there are far too many felons with access to the national petty cash box. But the marvellous opportunity presented by the SONA event in Cape Town last night to round up hundreds of them was wasted. The new prosecuting unit is still just on his wish list and so the police were untroubled. Unfortunately, even the fashion police who ought to have been at work were also absent. It’s a mystery why this event on the parliamentary calendar causes the guests to behave and dress like teenagers off to a sleepover at a friend’s house. This year there wasn’t even the promise of a midnight feast although the A-list had been to a lavish lunch beforehand so undoubtedly there were sleepy heads in the chamber.

Those who are fretting that splitting Eskom into three units will cause job losses, probably need not worry. Although Eskom does need a drastic prune of the head count as well as a professional and long-term approach to the supply and pricing of its coal stocks, the fact is that neither is likely. Unless of course management of all three divisions is entrusted predominantly to competent engineers. The very fortuitously timed announcement by Total that an exploratory well 175km offshore Knysna has encountered possibly substantial reserves of gas and condensate has been immediately translated by an accountant into a very exciting R1 trillion windfall. At that distance offshore and in as yet unspecified water depth the only currently bankable certainty about this discovery is the delightful name of “Brulpadda” (= bull frog)

COSATU’s General Secretary has come up with a novel idea. He says that his organisation is worried that the ANC might put up tainted candidates in the forthcoming general election process. He was even as outspoken as to name two of the current scandals (VBS bank and Bosasa) and a few people who “have been fingered in wrongdoing” and has asked them to recuse themselves from the lists. He believes that the ANC has enough capable and honest people in its ranks and has no need to (recycle) “compromised tainted characters”. While some may be sceptical of this claim, it would be wonderful if all the 287 political parties so far registered to contest the elections cleansed its lists in this way. Having a government comprised of capable and honest folk sounds great but are there really enough politicians like this  to make up even a modest cabinet of say a dozen?  Also worrying is the length of the ballot form needed to offer so many parties.

Anyone still anxious about South Africa slipping down the rankings in all the important stuff like education, health, ease of doing business etc must be relieved that we are still right up there when it comes to conspicuous consumption. The local dealership for the Pagani Huayra Roadster won’t reveal its price nor the names of the two local buyers. Speculation is that they are either politically placed or prophets. Who else has the protection required to drive at 337 km/hr?

The national cricket selectors seem to be spoiled for choice and the manufacturer of Proteas caps is being kept busy. Our lads’ T20 wins against Pakistan were not convincing, but it really is a dreadful format of the game. Having family living overseas injects a bit more interest in the Six Nations rugby for me especially when the Springbok Sevens are battling, and a local official thought Super Rugby and Super Heroes had a nice ring about it.

James Greener

Friday 8^th February 2019

REMEMBER TO READ THIS ALOUD

Our wee runt is stronger against most major currencies that at any other time in the past six months. Could it be that the whispers about selling off SAA, breaking up Eskom and having a new Head Public Prosecutor has sparked a small fire of optimism that honesty, integrity and understanding are starting to roam the corridors of power?

In December, our government spent R143 billion rand. This is a mere R1bn more than in December 2017 and might be taken as a sign of expenditure control. During calendar 2018, however, our leaders whistled through almost R1500 billion, which is R200bn more than SARS managed to collect from the battered taxpayers. To fill this shortfall National Treasury needs to borrow and amazingly they are managing to convince the lenders (most of whom are also the aforementioned taxpayers) to pay ever increasing prices for government bonds. This optimism thing may be stronger than we thought.

In just over a fortnight the Finance Minister Mboweni will present the national Budget and it has to be a racing certainty that he won’t reduce a single tax. There is still scant evidence that anyone except avowed hard-line socialists with ever more punitive and misguided ideas about redistributing wealth has any input into budget policy.

It was not difficult for South Africans to imagine just what it was like in the USA when the government there “shut-down”. It sounded rather like “business as usual” for anyone here trying to obtain the documents and services that our government requires us to have. We are well familiar with snail’s pace inattention and being told by the clerk that one is talking with the wrong person and anyway the forms the other official issued are the wrong ones and anyway this office is now shutting. Come back on Thursday. Reportedly some Americans began to realise that one could live quite well without bureaucrats. What it all meant politically in Washington only the bravest and unhealthily inquisitive could guess.

Those of us who from time to time believe we have discovered or invented something that will make our lives easier (like using a pair of braai tongs to reach from the driver’s seat for the newspaper lying in the drive) have no idea just how valuable our intellectual property might be. The fellow who claims to have told Vodacom, his employer at the time, about a useful idea he had, now has a crowd of supporters bouncing in the streets demanding that he be paid R70bn. It’s doubtful that this was the value of the idea to Vodacom but undoubtedly in return for their noisy support of the claimant, the mob expect a kick back and so life goes on in South Africa. It has not been discussed if the expectant protestors have noted that faced with an unexpected expense like that, Vodacom will likely increase their prices.

A far more modest amount of only R32m has also not yet been paid. This time by the ANC whose main defence for not settling this bill with the business that was managing their website and digital membership list is that they are 107 years old and have a proud legacy. Unfortunately, the teenage geeks who run the internet are uninterested in legacies.

The banks themselves were very professional in not refuting the claim by SABC that they all simultaneously suffered identical “glitches” and failed to pay the broadcaster’s January salaries. Those with inside knowledge, however, were adamant that the glitch was simply that there was no money to do so. Presumably National Treasury had to call their bank to make an instant EFT payment courtesy of the tax payers.  Allegedly many other state-owned enterprises will also soon have to explain to staff that the cash box is empty. Emptied by lax controls and clueless budgeting practices.

Not only is it World Read Aloud Day but the Six Nations rugby begins, it’s the Sydney Sevens and if you like that sort of thing the poor Pakistani cricketers are still hanging around and have to play the T20series against the Proteas.

James Greener

Friday 1^st February 2019