South Africa

When Royals play. We are not amused.

The Eastern Cape is once again pushing hard to get "The Worst Province. Ever" award this year. Showing your tax money is being wisely spent, we have the following fine bit of news about the joyrides among the provincial royalty :

Johannesburg - Two Eastern Cape traditional kings have damaged the brand-new luxury German cars the provincial government gave them last month, Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday. It said the two BMW X5s were now grounded and had been sent for repairs. The vehicles belonged to King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo of AbaThembu BakaDalindyebo and King Zwelonke Sigcawu of AmaGcaleka.

Fixing the two cars, which were insured, would cost R40 000. Two days after taking delivery of his luxurious car, Dalindyebo drove over a signpost about 20km from KwaZulu-Natal. Local Government and Traditional Affairs spokesperson Siki Wababa-Putini said the car had a damaged front wheel and suspension control arms, costing about R25 000.

Can't we get Chelsy Davy down to the EC to raise the bar a bit?

You would think since ’94 inequality had decreased? Well, apparently not if a report from the SA Institute of Race Relations is to be believed – it has increased dramatically, especially among the African population : 

"Increases (in levels of inequality) were most dramatic for the African population, which saw levels... rise by 21 percent... since 1996," the institute said in a statement issued to mark the publication of its annual South Africa Survey. Such growing inequality was in part an indication of the growth of a black middle class. Of concern, however, was that "such growth has been accompanied by an increase in poverty among the lowest income groups".

 

The survey showed the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day - the measure of absolute poverty - had more than doubled since 1994.

Again, this is post-’94. 

The coverage of last week’s little tussle between Helen Zille and the ANC over the new World Cup stadium seems to have given passing reference to why Zille took such drastic action. The DA may have won the Mayor ship and wrested control from the ANC, but I think their actions were driven by a growing reality over the massive challenge they face in running the city. The stadium battle is only the first problem the DA will face in a city that is in dire need of upgrades and service delivery.

To further this point and understand the long road ahead for the City lets look at a few highlights from an article written by Carol Paton in the Financial Mail :

Cape Town's electricity and sewerage infrastructure is crumbling and in urgent need of huge investment; the administration is weak, demoralised and distrustful of Zille; the housing crisis grows every year no matter if the province spends its entire budget; and the city faces a R3bn price tag to meet Fifa requirements for the soccer World Cup in 2010.

 

The elephant in the room is the housing shortage and the inability of previous City administrations to tackle the problem :

As with all city politicians that have gone before her, housing is the problem that is most on her mind. Cape Town, says Zille, gets about R350m/year for housing - which would allow almost 9 000 matchbox houses to be built annually, assuming that infrastructure for water and sewerage has been paid for out of the city's other budgets. 
"There are 250 000 households on the waiting list, which grows by 16 000/year. You don't have to be Einstein to figure out that you are going backwards every year," she says. It's a numbers game that the city just can't win, and rather than continuing to promise everyone a house it would be far better to take an honest look at housing policy: either changing the national budget to ensure that there will be brick houses for all, or changing the policy to fit the budget by giving everyone services, like water and sewerage, but not all of them houses, she argues.

 
It might be a more realistic way of looking at the problem. But Zille is completely without influence to change national housing policy. And were she to try to do it alone, announcing to the poor of Cape Town that the DA did not plan to build houses, would be political suicide for her party.

Then there is the less visible but also important :

Six years ago, the Unicity Commission - a body set up to strategise the merging of Cape Town's six metropolitan substructures - put the sewerage infrastructure backlog at R1,4bn. Neighbourhood-based sewage pump stations built decades ago are no longer able to deal with the demands of a city of 3m people. But since the commission's warning, no investment in sewerage infrastructure has been made, except for an emergency R200m at one of the sewerage works. 

And of course who could forget :

The electricity crisis is more visible. Cape Town needs additional generating capacity urgently and the city will have to campaign hard with national authorities to make sure that it gets it sooner rather than later. Aside from the crisis in the supply, the distribution network - 6 000 substations that fall under the control of the city and now regional electricity distributor RED1 - are decrepit. With a maximum lifespan of 30 years, most are 33 years old and, says an official, "have been in crisis maintenance mode for five years". It is these substations that continually trip the network when Koeberg attempts to bring the power back up after an outage.

If the DA pulls this one off, they deserve to move on to bigger and better things…

 - (Big hat tip to Hex) -

- Dirrrrty! Brett Kebble's evil empire and all of its morally bankrupt connections have finally seen the light of day in an auditors report commissioned by institutional investors Allan Gray and Investec. The heady stink of greed and corruption hangs heavy over the report and a number of Party big-guns are named. Top receivers of Kebble's ill-gotten gains were the ANC who he apparently "loaned" R18-million to, other ANC heavyweights on the payroll who were loaned money included :

• Mac Maharaj, former Transport Minister (R280000);

• Popo Molefe, former North West premier (R768000);

• Former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni (R1.4-million);

• Dali Tambo, son of late ANC president Oliver Tambo (R11.096-million)

•Sello Rasethaba, director of Matodzi (R9.667-million);

•Eric Molefe, former chairman of Exel Petroleum, the black-owned oil company (R431000);

•Chris Nissen, former Western Cape ANC leader (R370000);

•David Barritt, Kebble’s former spokesman (R10.295-million);

•Sharif Pandor, husband of Education Minister Naledi Pandor (R979966);

•Dominic Ntsele, a Kebble business associate (R2-million);

•Lunga Ncwana, a prominent ANC Youth League member (R7.060-million); and

•Andile Nkuhlu, a Youth League leader and former JCI executive (R333000).

 

The forensic report recommended that : 

•Criminal charges and civil claims be laid against the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC);

•Criminal charges and civil claims be laid against former Randgold directors and officers; and

•Randgold claim back about R390-million from Kebble’s estate.

 

Where did all this money come from? Well, it is alleged that Kebble siphoned off R2-billion in Randgold & Exploration shareholders’ money through a series of deals he orchestrated.

Today is Human Rights Day. Today forty-six years ago the Nationalist regime signalled it was not interested in negotiation nor in slowing down the pace of Apartheid implementation. A day of infamy probably only equalled by what happened 16 years later in Soweto.

By 10 in the morning almost 5,000 protesters had congregated in the centre of Sharpeville, from where they walked to the police compound. Similar groups (about 4,000 in total) walked from Bophelong and Boipatong to the police station at Vanderbijlpark, whilst a larger gathering of almost 20,000 people formed at the police station in Evaton.

 

The crowd at Evaton was dispersed by low-flying Sabre jets, and that at Vanderbijlpark was dispersed by a baton charge and tear gas. One person was killed at Vanderbijlpark when the police opened fire in response (the police claimed) to stone throwing by the crowd. At Sharpville, with a number of PAC officials in the crowd, the low-flying jets had no effect. The crowd remained around the police compound, waiting for a PAC statement to be read out.

 

In the official TRC version of events the police remained passive until one-fifteen. Despite claims in the press in 1960 (and still in many reports) that squads of police went out into the crowd to arrest PAC officials, no action was actually taken by the police against the PAC at that time. "The police refused to arrest PAC members who presented themselves for arrest."⁴ Police accusations that the PAC leadership refused to instruct the crowd to disperse, however, were deemed false: various officials did in fact ask them to move away from the compound's fence. Only 300 or so protesters were still in the vicinity when the shooting started (this means, however, that the police managed to shoot almost all those near to the compound). By mid-day the small contingent of police normally present at the station (12 in all) had been boosted significantly: nearly 300 armed police and five Saracens (armoured vehicles) were present.

 

No one knows why the first shot was fired. The police claim it was in response to stone throwing by the crowd, and although this is mostly dismissed, such debris is visible amongst the fallen bodies and discarded footwear in photographs of the aftermath. The first shots being fired in response by inexperienced and nervous officers. (Rarely mentioned in contemporary reports is that the police were nervous because, only a few weeks before, nine policemen had been killed by a mob at Cato Manor, a township outside Durban.) Eyewitnesses from the crowd claim that an order was given to fire, or that the banging of a Saracen door was mistaken for gunfire from the crowd. No firm evidence for any weapons amongst the crowd (guns or traditional spears and knobkerries) has ever been given. The TRC concluded that there was a "degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire at Sharpville" which indicated "that the shooting was more than the result of inexperienced and frightened police officers losing their nerve."⁵

 

Somewhere between 50 and 75 of the police opened fire. The crowd initially confused, and perhaps thinking the police were using blanks, stood still. It was not until the bodies started to fall that they ran. The police continued to shoot the protesters even as they fled from the site. Of the 180 injured, only 30 had been shot from the front. The injured included 31 women and 19 children, while among the 69 killed, eight were women and ten children.

 

It took a while for emergency services to arrive (the telephone lines had been cut) and the police were slow to provide help. Following the massacre, the police made 77 arrests, including several people still receiving treatment in hospital (they were placed under guard until they were fit enough to be detained). Of those arrested, 55 were later released.

The TRC report on the Massacre concluded :

The Commission finds that the police deliberately opened fire on an unarmed crowd that had gathered peacefully at Sharpville on 21 March 1960 to protest against the pass laws. The Commission finds further that the SAP (South African Police) failed to give the crowd an order to disperse before they began firing and that they continued to fire upon the fleeing crowd, resulting in hundreds of people being shot in the back. As a result of the excessive force used, 69 people were killed and more than 300 injured. The Commission finds further that the police failed to facilitate access to medical and/or other assistance to those who were wounded immediately after the march.

 

"The Commission finds that many of the participants in the march were apolitical, women and unarmed, and had attended the march because they were opposed to the pass laws. The Commission finds, therefore, that many of the people fired upon and injured in the march were not politicised members of any political party, but merely persons opposed to carrying a pass.

 

"The Commission finds that many of those injured in the march were placed under police guard in hospital as if they were convicted criminals and, upon release from hospital, were detained for long periods in prison before being formally charged. In the majority of instances when persons so detained appeared in court, the charges were withdrawn.

 

"The Commission finds the former state and the minister of police directly responsible for the commission of gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people. Police failed to give an order to disperse and/or adequate time to disperse, relied on live ammunition rather than alternative methods of crowd dispersal and fired in a sustained manner into the back of the crowd, resulting in the death of sixty-nine people and the injury of more than 300."

    - From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol 3, Chapter 6, October '98

 

There are two types of "people" (I use this term extremely loosely) that I despise above all others. These scum (a more accurate description) never fail to turn my stomach when I hear of their disgusting deeds. I am of course talking about child abusers and those that are cruel to animals. It takes a person with a particularly warped personality to abuse a position of power over those that are weaker than themselves in order to gain some twisted kick or financial gain. So, when I read this story I could literally feel my blood pressure rising as the litany of abuses these animals endured was listed.

Needless to say I would love to see this John Visser scum forced to experience the same horrors he exacted on those creatures!

A special kind of hell for you JV...!

Dispatches from the VC's office at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) :

All staff at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) were forced to buy a photograph of vice-chancellor Aubrey Mokadi, with university funds, to hang on their office walls. And all departments had to buy birthday presents for him, also with university funds, and to celebrate another occasion he created called “The Day of the Vice-Chancellor”. Mokadi was especially strict about how tea was served to him: the handle had to face him so that he did not have to turn the cup. If the tea faced the wrong way, he sent it back

 

...and yes, it can get worse than that, be sure to read on.

The recent power-failures/gravy plane/oilgate/land distribution "fun and games" have got me thinking.

Let's talk about responsibility for a moment, or the lack thereof that seems to be effecting many so called "influential" people in SA. It's quite simple really - when you are put in a position of power/influence you are afforded certain privileges that come with the added responsibilities you have chosen to shoulder, it's a balance between the two. In public office there are additional burdens the most important of which is that of a fiduciary duty. Here's a nice definition (found via Wiki)

"A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care imposed at either equity or law. A fiduciary is expected to be extremely loyal to the person they owe the duty (the "principal"): they must not put their personal interests before the duty, and must not profit from their position as a fiduciary, unless the principal consents. The fiduciary relationship is highlighted by good faith, loyalty and trust, and the word itself originally comes from the Latin fides, meaning faith" 

 

Sounds all very good and noble, but whether politicians like it or not they have chosen to become representatives of the people. By making this choice they have signalled their acceptance of this "contract" of faith. Likewise the electorate has signalled it's confidence in the person by electing them and presenting them with a mandate to represent their interests.

This is often the blind spot of this government and the various party functionaries that it has elected to serve in public office. Try to think of all the scandals have broken since this government took power? Now think of how many officials implicated in these scandals have a) resigned or b) apologised for their actions? Still thinking? Yes me too, that's because I cannot actually name one official who has done the honorable thing and fallen on his sword or given a believable mia culpa. I don't know how many times an issue effecting a public official has devolved into a crude game of pass the buck - cos lord only know it's always someone else's fault isn't it? Or failing that the second defence seem to be to just ignore the findings of whatever commission or court that was tasked to investigate the mistake/crime/incompetence and sail on irregardless. Bad attitude. Bad example. Bad leadership.

Tsotsi has taken the award for Best Foreign Language Film at this years Oscars. Well done to the entire cast and crew, you've made us all very proud!

I usually enjoy reading the Opinion section of the Suntimes with its views that seem to span the political spectrum. Even if I don't always agree with what the various commentators have to say, usually the discussion is kept within the realm of good robust, debate. This is not the case with this article by Vuyo Mvoko - a cynically written piece that hauls out all your favourite prejudices and delights in casting everything into an us-versus-them childish discourse. Setting the tone for the entire article is the heavily loaded title of "Homecoming: The return of a baas from abroad is too much for me", and yes it can get worse than that! Let's take a peek into the mind of Mvoko, who sees in the eyes of every returning expat a raving white supremacist intent on destroying everything the rest of us have done since 1994 :

I am concerned about the message that this homecoming initiative is going to send. Among the questions I ask myself: how do we end up creating heroes out of villains? Admittedly, I also feel an awkwardness about not sharing the sunny optimism in a country that’s facing not only massive unemployment but abject poverty in many of its parts.

 

Villains? In what way? Please explain to the rest of us how you managed to quickly head overseas and interview each and every single one of these expats who are returning and come to this conclusion? But then of course never let logic stand in the way of a good smear so please roll on...

I start asking myself whether it was really our government’s conviction that we have a “skills crisis” so big that we have no other choice but to go down on our knees and call back all those affirmative action “exiles”, some of whom used every opportunity to spew forth the self-serving propaganda that they were being “chased away” by the employment equity policies of this government. I am keen to know what the government said during its successful bids to persuade the 90 “messiahs”. Something along the lines of “we’ve come to realise just how wrong we were about you guys and we sincerely apologise for that. We are indeed lucky the country did not come crashing down as soon as your flights took off to Perth and London”?

 

Going down on our hands and knees? Us? Are we not instead doing what every other country on the planet is doing in attempting to attract highly skilled individuals into our country to make ourselves more competitive in a globalising world? I liked the stereotype that all expats must be running from affirmative action, hell it couldn't be anything else could it? Things like developing your career, experiencing a new culture, not enjoying the SA lifestyle never factor into Mvoko's logic. But do go on...   

I didn’t think I was way out of line in assuming that someone would have given them the impression that if this country was to spend another year without them, South Africa would be doomed.

 

Yes I believe you would be out of line. The government has never even romotely given this impression; this is a government that has become infamous for hardly ever backtracking or apologising for past incorrect decisions. Do you think they would make an exception for a couple of expats? Doubt it.

But before I could give the Zimbabwean High Commission’s asylum office a call, I found solace in the President’s words that our country had entered its “Age of Hope”. And as the book of Isaiah he quoted from says: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree. And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree ...”

Please don't hesitate on this one, and as they say in the ad's "Call now! Our operators are standing by for your call". I'm sure in Zim a man of your vision and forthrightness would be greatly appreciated, especially with your job description listed as "an independent media and political consultant".

Tembekile, a friend of mine who is an engineer by training but who has done very little of that in his dozen or so years of working because there are no opportunities, swears that his anger has nothing to do with the fact that he must just stick to selling cars and forget about being an engineer again. He insists his apparent lack of trust of white people has nothing to do with the hostile reception he and scores of black professionals get when they entered the world of work.

 

He laughs at me when I say he’s taking things a bit too far when he also blames white people for the fact that we have asylum-seekers from the African continent, who are qualified in all manner of things, but who end up parking cars and being security guards.

 

Yes of course your "friend" Tembekile. Come now Vuyo, just own up to your own prejudices, no need to bring in your imaginary friend  to cover your own ass in trying to bolster your very shaky logic. But of course here comes the kicker -

I have now accepted that I’m an endangered species. But the thought of having a baas returning from the UK, New Zealand and Australia is too much for me.

 

What can you say to that? Ninety expats return and Mvoko's whole world comes crashing down, the return to a white-dominated government is just round the corner. What an intellectually dishonest and horrendously stereotypical piece! No I'll tell you what you can say to Mvoko -

All people are different. Everyone has different dreams and aspirations in life and just cos they don't fit with whatever Mvoko's dream is, doesn't make them "villains" or "affirmative action exiles". Undoubtedly there are a number of bitter SA expats who are hoping that things don't go our way in SA so their decision to leave can be validated by our implosion, but that doesn't mean every single expat is like that. Isn't that what we all wanted, a country where we could be free from labels and stereotypes? What Mvoko presents here is his very twisted society in which everyone fits into a certain category and god help them if they dare step out of their assigned box! "Oh you're an SA expat well then you must be a bitter racist who wanted to see out country fail! What's that, you went overseas because you wanted to expand your skill set and now you've returned to do your bit and build the country? Sorry no dice, we've already decided what you are, so no use trying to argue your way out of it!" Hey Vuyo I've got another stereotype for you - all senior appointees to the SABC must have been politically connected to the ANC to get their jobs. Weren't you the former head of the Politics desk of the SABC?

Should we go on? No, we should move on because that's a childish way of establishing someone's bona fides, instead why don't we look at a persons actions today. Making the decision to return to SA and giving a vote of confidence to our country, wanting to use your skills to make a difference, wanting to help the next group of managers and professionals develop! How about that for a stereotype!

Positive thinking is what we need in SA today - not the loaded trash that Mvoko offers here!