African Statesmanship

The recent death of Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa is a tragedy for not only Zambia but also for the entire African continent.

My understanding is that Zambia has prematurely lost a leader of exceptional calibre who was striving to make a genuine difference to the lives of Zambians, particularly in his determined fight against corruption.

Almost uniquely amongst world leaders, Mwanawasa publicly confronted and then prosecuted his predecessor Frederick Chiluba for corruption and fraud. Mwanawasa’s decision to do so cannot have been easy. Chiluba had, after all, been the one to groom and present Mwanawasa as his successor and there must have been some considerable pressure from within the ruling party not to rock the boat (thereby spilling the cash) and to spare Chiluba public humiliation – to say nothing of Chiluba’s underlings, hangers-on, presumed beneficiaries and possible co-conspirators.

Instead, Levy Mwanawasa chose to be a statesman, deciding – as far as possible in a political environment – to honour his promises to the electorate by adhering to the principles (oft-repeated but rarely practiced by the power hungry) of his country’s Constitution. In so doing he appears to have honoured himself and his country, as well as having set a worthy example to his constituency.

Although Spearpoint never had the opportunity to meet and know Levy Mwanawasa personally, the hope is that Zambia will allow Spearpoint to join (albeit remotely) in their mourning as a fellow African.

For the demise of Zambia’s Mwanawasa is a loss not only for Zambia but is also a loss for the whole of Africa – especially southern Africa.

As at home, Mwanawasa displayed the courage to stand up and be counted in the face of the prevailing antipathy in the southern African region towards corruption, fraud and dictatorship in the form of Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical and outright criminal regime in Zimbabwe.

With the tacit support of Ian Khama, the President of Botswana, Mwanawasa alone named and shamed Mugabe for what he is, what he represents and what he perpetrates against his own country and people.

In so doing Mwanawasa also implicitly named and shamed all those other African leaders who, despite mounting and convincing evidence, have given Mugabe political support and sustenance either directly and openly or through their failure to criticise and isolate Zimbabwe for its current policies and situation.

Principal amongst these has been South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and his ANC government.

Appointed by SADC to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis, Mbeki has epitomized the approach of many other African leaders: don’t rock the boat; don’t embarrass Mugabe; don’t expose Mugabe; don’t fracture the façade of imagined African so-called solidarity; don’t further reinforce the global perception of Africa’s inability to identify, address and remedy its own problems, including those of poverty, corruption, crime, ignorance and indolence.

Notwithstanding recent critical comments from Jacob Zuma (as President of the ANC) regarding Zimbabwe, the fact remains that South Africa continues to pussyfoot around the person of Mugabe and the crisis in Zimbabwe and refuses – publicly, at least – to acknowledge that a problem exists. In Mbeki’s own words on the subject, “There is no crisis”. Sentiments echoed by the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The ANC must be living in gaga land.

It’s obviously not a crisis when a neighbour of South Africa destroys its economy (inflation admitted by the Zimbabwean government just this month to be running at not less than eleven million percent – that’s eleven followed by six zeroes, folks), and driving no less than four million of its own citizens into South Africa – mostly illegally – to escape starvation and political persecution (and who knows how many into other neighbouring countries).

And how can it be a crisis when even the great ANC, champion of the art of rule by smoke and mirrors, has been appointed (in the person of Thabo Mbeki) by SADC to mediate between Mugabe and the Zimbabwean Opposition.

Yet the appointment of a mediator implies conflict, dispute and actual or potential crisis. That much SADC has got right; where it went wrong was appointing Mbeki and his team as mediators. Not only do the mediators deny the existence of a situation which they have consciously agreed to fix, but they are unsuited and unqualified to carry out such a role since they have consistently and laughably maintained for many years now that within their own borders there are no crises in law enforcement, the judicial system, education, HIV, AIDS, TB and other health matters, housing, and so on.

SADC erred in appointing the ANC and Mbeki. It is patently clear that these guys couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel, given their record of domestic service delivery and good governance.

The mediation between the parties in Zimbabwe has stalled. Naught has been achieved. Mugabe continues to do as he pleases – even to the extent of re-convening Zimbabwe’s parliament (which, according to Zimbabwe’s Constitution, should have occurred months ago) before there is any clarity and agreement on how power division and sharing will prevail in the new government.

Now, doesn’t that just speak volumes on the dedication and abilities of the so-called mediators?

Excepting Zambia and Botswana, no-one in SADC has had the courage to slap Mugabe silly and to tell him to stop behaving like a spoiled brat and to stop embarrassing all of Africa with his puerile behaviour. Mugabe’s arrogance and assumed impunity – watch his disjointed marionette-like swagger in public – has never been challenged by South Africa and its continental cronies.

Indeed, South Africa has shown great concern over Mugabe’s dignity and has been keen to protect that dubious quality. But at what price? Where is the dignity of those Zimbabweans, forever on the cusp of eviction, arrest and starvation, free-falling into the black hole of faster-than-light inflation who have had to separate from their families and homes in order to cross the borders of neighbours looking for some means of sustenance and to live in the additional and constant fear of deportation as illegal immigrants? Where, in South Africa, is the dignity for those South Africans already suffering under the laissez-faire incompetencies of the ANC dictatorship who now have to make room in already overcrowded cities, townships and squatter camps for swarms of desperate immigrants who also want a share of what is clearly an inadequate, mismanaged and ill-divided political and economic cake?

Does the ANC have no shame? Is it not ashamed that it continues its rhetoric and spin doctoring even though it clearly cannot do its job – either at home or around the table in Harare? Just what are the criteria against which it measures itself and which, obviously, allow it in its collective politburo mind to continue its rule?

Of course, shame and admission of error are not matters for easy admission by any politician even in the normal course of events, much less at any other time. Such is the nature of the beast. (Also, incidentally, such is the nature of those that look for and permit the politicians to rule; populations and electorates tend to be lazy in thinking for themselves and constantly seek the comfort of having someone else do their thinking for them. A contradiction of the human condition is that, of all the creatures on the planet, humans have the greatest ability to deal with change, challenge and chance yet are the most persistent in their – often unconscious and unspoken – drive for certainty and comfort.)

Admission of error in Africa is very difficult. Culturally the strong man must be seen to be strong, even if – especially if – wrong. The advent of colonial rule, with all the embarrassments that that brought, together with the displays of power and material goods by the colonial powers, then provided the need to display to the world that Africa and Africans could achieve the same themselves without outside intervention.

The loss of face when African nations screw things up is immense – far more so than the purported Oriental perceptions of face. This is why, for example, racism and colonialism are frequently used as catchphrases to divert attention away from the true reasons for African failure.

Mugabe blames the racism and imperialism of Britain and America for his devastation of the Zimbabwean economy and social structure. Mbeki and many of his colleagues blame racism in South Africa for the failure of many of the ANC’s policies and programmes. It is far less embarrassing and far easier to fix the blame rather than the problem – particularly where personal political careers and ambitions might be at stake. It’s an African pastime; it didn’t rain enough; it rained too much; we don’t have enough money; foreigners are taking our women and jobs; the Whites don’t share; the British conspire against our sovereignty; the Chinese steal our resources; the Indians are lazy and greedy; the Zulus cannot be trusted and steal everything not nailed down; the World Food Programme gave our starving people the wrong food; it goes on and on.

Spearpoint is not suggesting that there are not grains of truth and reality in some or all of the above excuses. But that is what they are – excuses. Fourteen years after shouldering aside the burdens of apartheid the ANC and its stalwarts still glibly trot out racism, colonialism and imperialism as reasons behind its failures in almost every arena of life in South Africa. They fail to see that history is history; it is past and passé. History is a guide for and to the future, not a Balkan-type motivation for perpetuating old horrors as justification for interminable inefficiencies and inadequacies.

Unfortunately, it is in the past that the ANC finds itself mired. Starting its existence as a protest and liberation movement the ANC has been unable to shrug off that mindset. Fourteen years into government the ANC is trapped in a time-warp, still slavishly employing the same slogans, gestures and thought patterns of its Communist Party origins and history dating back to the October Revolution and the Long March when those who were not for the movement were targetted as enemies and to be treated accordingly. Defunct ideology and the mindless mouthing of Cold War rhetoric serve little useful purpose when the living are here and now in a world that has moved on from what may or may not have happened centuries ago.

The ANC has failed to heed its own ideological teachings and raison d’etre which were to grow, improve and develop. The ANC has fallen at the first hurdle of metamorphosing from a liberation movement into a credible political party and sustainable government. The eyes and thoughts of the ANC remain firmly fixed on the perceived glories of its past where, by virtue of the then prevailing circumstances, it was easy to exhibit and enjoy disciplined solidarity since the goals of the organisation were simple to define and explain and the enemy was easily identified. Now in government the aims and objectives are far fuzzier in the face of the need to be a responsible and credible representative of an entire and diverse population; the temptation for which the ANC has fallen has been that of remaining a lobby group for a narrow and specific segment of the populace. The ANC continues to view everything non-ANC as being ‘the enemy’ and has behaved and responded accordingly.

Thus, for example, ANC officials will blame ‘white mentality’ and resistant racism for poor results on the rugby pitch or athletics field where points are not awarded for ideological or racial purity but for excellence in performance. Excellence cannot be legislated or enforced. It must be scouted, nurtured and developed organically. A fat runner cannot be expected to be able to produce satisfactory results in the marathon, regardless of any racial or socio-economic origins from which the individual may have come; the athlete must be made fit and then trained in his discipline before adequate results can be reasonably expected. Likewise, a school leaver, unable to add, subtract and so on cannot become a computer technician or electrician until he has had the time and resources granted him to master sufficient of the basics to enable him to then progress on to more specialised (and better paid) areas of competence.

Similarly with the Zimbabwe situation. The ANC remains locked in its perennial ‘circle-the-wagons’ mentality of giving greater weight to old loyalties than to recognition of getting the job done and removing those who fail to produce results. The support given the ANC by Mugabe and Zimbabwe during the ANC’s years of opposition to the then South African regime are viewed by the ANC to be perpetual bonds of debt that far outweigh any consideration of the abilities and rationale of the creditor in that relationship. That Mugabe is an egomaniacal despot who has so alienated the people of both his own country and others around the world that the economic and political fabric of Zimbabwe now lies tattered and fallen appears to matter less to the ANC than the perceived debt owed to Mugabe by the ANC. Worse still, the negative impact upon South Africa and other SADC countries stemming from Mugabe’s depredations is clearly considered by the ANC to be of little import; it could be argued that what happens in Zimbabwe is their own affair and they should be allowed to get on with it, but the argument fails if the actions of Zimbabwe directly impact on South Africa. Would the ANC retain its present stance if the Zimbabwean army were to invade South Africa in order to seize assets no longer available in Zimbabwe? Or would the ANC turn a blind eye, again, and insist that no crisis existed?

As the governing party of South Africa the ANC’s prime responsibility is to the country and all the people of South Africa. The ANC’s responsibility to Zimbabwe (or any other country, for that matter) is secondary, at best. Get your own house in order. Only then – not before – and if there is something to spare, can you turn your charitable efforts elsewhere.

Hubris can be a terrible thing. It blinds one to failings and shortcomings which, if pride be briefly set aside, could be corrected with a minimum of fuss and damage. There is no shame or loss of self-esteem in saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have the skills right now to correct this situation” and then turning to others who possess the requisite knowledge. Knowledge and skills know no skin colours – but where they are claimed when, in fact, they are absent then there is a real and severe humiliation when the deficit is finally revealed.

Levy Mwanawasa’s legacy – in part, at least – will be of declaring to the world that just because fellow black Africans now largely control their own destinies it is still not right or acceptable when laws and principles are broken and cast aside – just as it is unacceptable when ordinary people suffer because their leaders are too proud or ideologically blinkered to acknowledge that they are relatively new to the business of running their own affairs and to bring in the required expertise.

Spearpoint.

26^th August 2008

What Is Democracy? (Don’t Ask The ANC!)

It’s a great shame that, after some fourteen years in power and God-knows how many years ostensibly fighting for a multi-racial, multi-party democracy, today’s ANC just doesn’t get what democracy is all about.

There are the well-known examples of the ANC’s lack of understanding of democratic principles and practices, most notably Affirmative Action (AA) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).

Notwithstanding the needs of actively redressing some of the social and economic imbalances inherent in pre-1994 South Africa, such outright discriminatory policies such as AA and BEE served not to heal the divisions stemming from our history but, rather, resulted in the alienation of a significant segment of the population denied access to the worlds of work and business whilst, at the same time, failing to include sufficient of the majority black population to make those policies worthwhile or realistic.

Democracy is about the equal application of ideals, policies and laws to all socio-economic groups and their individual members – without exception and without qualification.

AA and BEE are, therefore, a perversion of democratic principles and practices.

Likewise, the current – and growing – ANC elitist view of, and approach to the law.

The ANC appears increasingly to view the law as something the ANC alone decides and distributes but is not necessarily something to which it and/or its members are subject.

The lack of respect shown by the ANC to some recent legal rulings – including some of those of the Constitutional Court – has been absolutely awesome in its arrogance. Government ministers and their departments have, variously, failed to respond to summonses and subpoenas, attend court proceedings or to comply with court rulings and orders when inconvenient or embarrassing.

The ANC and members of ANC affiliates and allies have frequently and repeatedly openly flouted the laws of the land in both impromptu and carefully studied statements to the media – usually without expressed regret, later retraction or apology. Overtly racist or inflammatory comments have, largely, escaped censure or punishment. Ethical leadership from the upper ranks of the ANC (whence many of those comments have originated) has been glaringly absent.

“Bring me my machine gun” (Jacob Zuma); “We will kill for Jacob Zuma” (the presidents of the ANC Youth League and COSATU, respectively; “…you are displaying your white mentality…” (the Chairman of the Parliamentary Sports Portfolio Committee): all are very recent examples of the ANC’s disregard of, and impunity from the law. In contrast, a recent article by David Bullard in a major newspaper (which painted an imaginary ‘what if’ scenario) resulted in his dismissal and all sorts of legal threats against him at the time.

Clearly, the ANC wants its cake and to eat it, too. The ANC’s idea of gamesmanship is ‘Heads, we win; tails, you lose’.

Just as clearly, this is not democracy.

In like vein, the actions of Jacob Zuma – soon, no doubt, to be rubber stamped as the next President of South Africa – are increasingly tending Spearpoint to the view that “Methinks he doth protest too much”.

Having stridently proclaimed his innocence in the fallout from the arms deal, having strenuously demanded his day in court, he has, however, consistently failed to satisfy either the prosecuting authorities or the courts that he has no case to answer. Indeed, he has redoubled his efforts to delay or to prevent that day in court with what appears to be a cynical string of challenges and delaying tactics. The intention, one has to conclude, is to avoid any appearance in court on the charges he faces until after such time as he is inaugurated as President of the Republic – when, no doubt, he will grant himself Presidential immunity from the charges or, in the event of a conviction, a Presidential pardon. All he has to do is to stay out of court until after the elections. Heads, we win; tails, you lose.

Additionally, Mr. Zuma, through his legal team and his ANC supporters has complained bitterly that the recent Constitutional Court’s ruling against his application to deny into evidence those documents seized in raids a couple of years back was announced whilst he was out of the country.

Mr. Zuma and his legal team have been busy testing every avenue to escape the charges against him – as is provided for in our Constitution and other laws – and no-one denies him the right to do so. But where is the democracy in a situation where popularity, power and money (very little of that money, I understand, being Mr. Zuma’s) can so protract legal processes through deliberate strategy as to undermine and, even, deny the law when there are so many other people, without the same clout, who have to suffer justice (very often on remand) somewhat more speedily and ruthlessly – and, most importantly, without undue consideration of the convenience and timetable of the defendant?

Mr. Zuma wanted his day in court. Let him have that day. And on that day let him be an ordinary citizen, not the President of the country. Let the trial be conducted – and be seen to be conducted – with equality and democracy under our Constitution. If the man be adjudged innocent then let him get on with the rest of his life in peace until such time as he may breach the law again, if ever; if he is determined to be guilty then let him suffer whatever sanctions the court might impose.

If Mr. Zuma were a real democrat who did not appear to believe that he is a great man who is due homage and tribute for his supposed past services then he would resign his various posts and duties for the duration of his trial and (if it turns out that way) later appeal. In the process he would go a long way to exhibiting those positive democratic ethics and personal qualities which would merit him being the Head of State.

If the above examples are anything to go by, then Spearpoint can only conclude that not only does the ANC have a perverted and very convenient conception of what democracy is about, but also the mid- and long-term future of South Africa is, indeed, bleak to the point of utter depression.

Spearpoint.

2^nd August 2008

Reasons For My Recent Absence

 

Unlike many of my small yet faithful readership, I have been absent for several weeks from these pages. My thanks go out to those persistent readers who flatter me greatly by their repeated visits to my site in spite of my recent silence. I just hope that you will all forgive my lapse and continue your visits.

 

Perhaps some had thought that I had been the target of crime, with a dash of xenophobia thrown in for good measure. No, nothing quite so dramatic, thankfully.

 

I have been absent for rather more prosaic – and, it must be said, selfish – reasons.

 

Firstly, I have to confess that I find writing to be extremely hard work – and which is probably self-evident from the quality of what I have produced thus far. I have always been mildly word- and number-blind at the best of times and this can be disadvantageous when one’s brain races faster than the ability to write or type out thoughts into an acceptable format. It can take me several days to produce one of my little contributions.

 

And despite sharing the fault of many writers – namely, that of having the arrogance in assuming that what one wishes to express is worthy of the time and attention of one’s hoped-for readers – I tend to avoid until the last possible minute actually creating the masterful missive, waiting until the urge to present my particular and peculiar ideas can be restrained no longer.

 

A driven firebrand clearly I am not…

 

Secondly, my office is fiery hot in summer and numbingly cold during winter. Owing to the fact that our beloved telecommunications monopoly, Telkom, no longer wishes to provide fixed-line telephone/fax/Internet services to my suburb (just 40 km from the centre of Johannesburg), I have had to resort to the incredibly more expensive and temperamental wireless services offered by a local cell phone network – whose signals are unavailable within the body of my house. Consequently, I have had to move my office into a partially completed and totally uninsulated outbuilding some distance from the house where, on good days, I can receive a signal just barely adequate to conduct my modest business and creative activities.

 

Today, with an outside temperature of around 19 degree Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius inside my spacious storeroom/barn, it is not too bad. Yet my fingers are still stiff with cold, my feet no longer part of my body and my arms and torso almost immobile because of the layers of clothing encasing my shivering frame.

 

Thirdly, since my last post last month I had the chance to earn a couple of bucks, so had to take a few days chasing some consultancy work – regular full-time and permanent work is hard to come by for a white man in his fifties in South Africa these days. As mentioned in a previous post, I like to eat on occasion.

 

Fourthly, I have been severely distracted by some immediate family concerns.

 

The first of these has been the impending permanent departure from South Africa of my daughter and her little family. At last, she has had enough of the crime, the corruption, the utter indifference to levels of professional service delivery and the inability for a person of her considerable energies and skills to progress in life merely because of her European ancestry.

 

This truly is a tragedy for South Africa. Even allowing for the fact that she is my daughter and my resultant natural bias, I have come across few people who have demonstrated anything like the grit, doggedness and sheer natural ability of this young woman. Having divorced her pathetic and selfish excuse of a husband (and whom I shall be making a point of seeking out one of these fine days), penniless and with a small daughter of her own in tow, she has exhibited a strength of character that saw her not only raise her child into someone I am proud of but also drove her to carve out a life and career to the maximum possible under the circumstances of present-day South Africa.

 

Her new life will be no easier to begin with. She will, however, be allowed to take her career to whatever level she desires; the only obstacles she will face in her new home will be those imposed by her ambitions and her talents.

 

I shall greatly miss her and my first granddaughter.

 

The second family concern that has been occupying my attention in recent weeks relates to my second granddaughter.

 

Born three months premature last month, this little pink angel has been fighting for her life since being so rudely thrust out into the world. Fractionally larger than my outstretched hand when I first saw her the day after her delivery, she has repeatedly faced the spectre of death – including surgery on a heart little larger than my thumbnail (and, in the process, reducing the surgeon and his team to tears as they worked their incredible skills on that tiny body).

 

Expecting, at any moment, to hear the worst, this little girl has fought back time and time again. We all thought that the end had come early this week when, hours after the heart surgery, she crashed catastrophically. One of the nursing staff, bless her, even hung around in the waiting room for several hours that same night – after the end of her twelve-hour shift – just to be there.

 

After counseling my son and his wife, the decision was reached by the doctors to take the baby off the ventilator. The family gathered to say their farewells to her and to await the arrival of the doctor who would be switching the machines off.

 

The machines are still running. Incredibly, joyously, just one hour before the due time, my little granddaughter, whom I had angrily accepted that I would never know, rallied and, for the time being at least, re-stormed the ramparts of life yet again.

 

Even those most cynical of creatures, the doctors and nurses, described the recovery as ‘miraculous’.

 

Who knows what the next hours, days, weeks and months will bring. Perhaps all of the terrors and fears of the last few weeks will be for naught. I feel most, of course, for my son and daughter-in-law. My desperate hopefulness can be as nothing compared to theirs. The little that my wife and self have been able to do has been confined largely to babysitting our three-year old grandson and trying to distract him away from his bewilderment and anxiety at all the upset within his family at present.

 

To those who gave thought and prayer to the newest member of our family in her predicament I offer my thanks – even though I have never met or known most of you. To the doctors and nurses at the Medi-Clinic where this little drama is being played out, I offer my thanks for your skill and concern.

 

To my new granddaughter – be with God and give it all you have.

 

Spearpoint.

12th June 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Racism is Alive and Kicking in South Africa

So the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) is all upset because the Human Rights Commission (HRC) gave a public slap on the wrist for the ejection of a number of non-black journalists from a recent briefing with Jacob Zuma.

 

Shame.

 

What, I wonder, would have been the reaction of the FBJ had a media event organized by exclusively white journalists refused entry to black reporters?

 

I’ll tell you. The FBJ would have screamed blue bloody murder and gone on to rant and rave how racism was still alive and kicking in South Africa and how every white person in the country was an apartheid recidivist intent on reviving the old days and ways.

 

The FBJ wants its cake and to eat it, too.

 

This is a great pity.

 

The FBJ – black or not – represents part of the so-called profession of journalism here and abroad. By failing, both in intent and practice, to subscribe to the stated aims of impartiality and fairness in the industry the FBJ has not only made a laughing stock of itself and pretty well destroyed its credibility, but has also deepened the contempt held by any thinking person for the profession as a whole. The FBJ has merely increased the suspicion surrounding the motives and actions of journalism and has done its own interests a great disservice.

 

Like a prima donna the FBJ has thrown a tantrum over the HRC’s remarks – for that is all the HRC did.

 

The HRC did not issue an enforceable judgement, merely an opinion. The over-reaction of the FBJ is quite remarkable.

 

Of course, the HRC should have been much harsher on the FBJ and its comments were clearly designed to avoid offending black sentiment.

 

This really shows the inherent cowardice of the HRC and its true role in human rights in South Africa. As asked above, what would have been the response of the HRC had white journalists excluded black colleagues in a similar situation?

 

The HRC would have made some very loud and indignant denunciations of the white people involved; it would have issued legal writs against the individuals and their professional body and some people would have been facing stiff fines and/or jail time.

 

Such is the two-faced chameleon nature of official human rights and spiteful race relations in South Africa today.

 

It’s all a massive fraud financed and motivated by the ANC and the government. All the pretty words and laws on equality were carefully crafted, put on the statute books and then touted around the globe as an example to the democratic donor countries in Europe and America of what good guys the ANC were in dealing with their former mortal enemies, the whites.

 

The application is, however, very different.

 

If you are a white person in South Africa, just try getting a development loan from the Landbank, a licence for a firearm, a job, or tendering for government work without first giving away 51% of your business – for nothing – to a black partner. A similar environment exists for the Indian and Coloured communities – they are not quite black enough to be included in the division of the post-apartheid spoils.

 

Oh! Yes! Racism is, indeed, alive and kicking in South Africa – it’s just that the rest of the world chooses not to see it because it would be rather embarrassing to have to admit that it has been conned and duped into a false sense of reality.

 

There is nothing wrong in seeking to redress the ills of the past – and, God knows, there were ills aplenty. But why, if not for reasons of economic greed and political revenge, change the balance in a way that so alienates 15% or more of the population that the most able, skilled and economically active of them exercise their economic attractiveness to other markets by deserting their country of birth or adoption?

 

If this programme of alienation and ethnic cleansing continues then South Africa will descend into a chaos no different from that of Zimbabwe’s following the forced eviction of thousands of white farmers in 2000.

 

The loss of skilled white artisans and professionals in recent years has already contributed significantly to the steady deterioration of much of South Africa’s infrastructure. More and more foreign expertise is having to be imported to run our major corporations and banks at much greater cost than if we had not, out of sheer spite, deported our own competence and skills.

 

Disregard the handful of aberrant white individuals who dream of the imagined glories of their past. They are not significant.

 

The vast majority of white people, whether Afrikaans or not, have subscribed wholeheartedly (some, granted, with varying degrees of wariness) to the vision of the New South Africa. Allow them the opportunity, without undue handicap, to contribute to the effort of truly uplifting the bulk of South Africa’s population into educated political and economic maturity. Allow them to expose the deceit that Africa and Africans are unable to manage their own affairs.

 

The Forum of Black Journalists, together with the ANC, have, through bitter personal experience, seen that the exclusivity and alienation of the apartheid days – to say nothing of other examples elsewhere in history – can only fail because such thinking always carries within it the seeds of its own discontent and subsequent destruction.

 

It has got to be worth trying not to repeat the mistakes and pain of the past.

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

Eskom and tariff hikes

Here we go – again.

 Don’t you just love the levels of professionalism and competence we have in South Africa?

1. Eskom removed the world-class skills base it inherited from its pre-1994 days by blindly following the ANC politically correct ideology of reverse affirmative action – it unceremoniously tossed out the white managers, engineers, technicians and linesmen who, rightly or wrongly, had comprised the bulk of expertise within the parastatal.
2. The removal of that skills base, whilst not done exactly overnight, took place over a very short period – too short to permit the recruitment and training of black replacements to the same levels of expertise, remembering that most of the white engineers and so on had served apprenticeships of several years followed by many years of on-the-job training and experience.
3. The ever diminishing numbers of competent personnel suffered increasingly low morale as the process continued and as they watched their world-class operation begin to disintegrate under the onslaught of unskilled time servers brought in through nepotism and racial quotas. “Hey, the government says we are equal and the only difference between us is that the whites have been privileged and we have not and, anyway, what’s so difficult about driving around in nice cars, having nice offices, having secretaries (oops, sorry, personal assistants), fat salaries, and so on. Skills? Aagh, we’ll pick those up as we go along – if we need them. Protestant work ethic? What’s that? We in the ANC and the new government of South Africa are socialist and communists – we don’t believe in that outdated and outmoded thinking since it is not politically correct (according to us) and, in any case, we are just taking over what was built up over generations by our predecessors.”
4. The new management of Eskom failed to understand and apply the concepts and lessons of investment in their inherited money-making machine. When, finally, the new management realised their mistake, they were too frightened of and politically indebted to their major stockholder (the ANC government) to be able to convey the severity of the developing crisis regarding the generation and distribution of electricity; nobody, it seems, was prepared to risk their lovely salaries, bonuses and related perks by being the too-earnest bearer of bad news to the powers-that-be that this wonderful cash cow was, in fact, on the brink of terminal starvation.
5. The ANC and its government officials failed to understand that the good days were on the point of coming to an end. The concept of long-term investment and re-investment totally escaped them. Things were going too well; the economy was proceeding nicely – how could anything be wrong? “To hell with these doomsayers – we, as the government have much more important things to spend money on. We must not delay, for example, spending hundreds of millions of Rands on re-naming towns, streets, municipalities. Anyway, if Eskom does need money later then we’ll look at it closer to the time – I mean, just how long can it take to build a few new power stations and the associated network? In the old days before 1994 we never seemed to have this problem, so how hard can it be?”
6. When, finally, the wheels came off the lumbering juggernaut that is Eskom, what happened? Because of the self-imposed ANC political perceptions of reality were far more important than the actual realities of life, both the government and Eskom, whilst simultaneously admitting a problem and downplaying the seriousness of that problem (admitting error is not a survival trait within the government, the ANC or Eskom), then proceeded to continue the export of substantial proportions of our power production to neighbouring countries – all previous allies to the ANC back in the days of the struggle against Apartheid.

Well, the chickens have well and truly come home to roost.

And in the process we have all been made to look utter fools to ourselves and the world at large. Once again we see that, with the ANC, its government and the various state utilities, style and spin are deemed to  be far more important and relevant that content. We can talk the talk but we’re buggered when we have to walk the walk.

 Now Eskom, with the support of the government, wants to hike its tarrifs by a stated 53%. Aware of the social and potential political fallout the ANC opposes the idea. As does COSATU. As do the bulk of businesses and private individuals. No great surprises there – except for the government’s stance.

Well, if the government is so supportive of the idea, then let the government pay for it.

1. The government is the main shareholder of Eskom.
2. The government failed (by its own – very surprising – admission) to respond in a responsible and responsive manner when, eventually, Eskom brought the problem to its attention.
3. The government has been deriving vast revenues from Eskom for years.
4. The government has failed to spend its budgeted allocations of those revenues through the inefficiencies and incompetence of many of its departments.
5. The government has been enjoying positive revenue balances for many years – partly because of Eskom’s contributions.

As with any other commercial or quasi-commercial enterprise – and especially in the case of a state monopoly – it’s all very well when times are good and you enjoy the huge dividends from your legislated market dominance, but there is an obligation to put your hand in your pocket when times are not so good.

The mere fact that Eskom is a state enterprise renders its revenues as indirect taxation. When that state enterprise turns a profit which is siphoned off into state coffers then that profit is additional (hidden) indirect taxation which is not declared as such. To have Eskom then to increase tariffs by a further massive 53% will subject the consumers of Eskom’s product (i.e. everyone in South Africa) to an undeclared indirect super-tax.

Forget the argument that South Africa has the cheapest electricity in the world. It is a spurious argument, at best. If we can produce electricity at the present price – and make a huge profit into the bargain – then let us benefit from that ability. If lower electricity prices can help to attract foreign investment into this country then let it be! We neither need nor want so-called parity pricing with other countries – it benefits absolutely no-one except traders, speculators and already well-established outside vested interests and whose secondary, derivative economic functions carry questionable economic value to anyone beyond themselves.

Let the government stump up the additional funds the Eskom now needs. The government has assumed the social role of providing the social service of electricity supply; it has enjoyed the spoils of that role and must now discharge its social duty of expanding that role at whatever cost is necessary. Moreover, the government has the moral obligation to the vast majority of its citizens who, even at current Eskom tariffs, can scarcely afford the minimum power they consume.

I just hope that the government has not seen this request for higher tariffs as an excuse to continue bilking the South African entrepreneur and consumer without exposing itself to losing those lovely revenues flowing into the Treasury…

Spearpoint.