15 posts tagged “politics”
Originally circulated in 2004. I am sure many of the stats still hold true.
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
373 in total or approximately 70%
Can you guess which organisation this is?
It's the 535 members of the SOUTH AFRICAN PARLIAMENT
All new construction projects countrywide that are bigger than a residential home will be blocked by Eskom for the next four to six months.
New townhouse complexes, petrol stations, factories and all other construction projects where electricity provision needs to be obtained from Eskom in advance will be delayed by up to six months.
New construction projects must obtain electricity certificates before construction can begin. Eskom will delay this process by provisionally not issuing any certificates.
What happened to Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin's assurance earlier this year that the economy would not be affected by the power crisis and rolling blackouts? Once again, our government is shown to be made up of incompetents, thugs and liars.
The resignation of Fidel Castro as president of Cuba took me by surprise. I thought he would die in office.
In a way, I am sad to see him go. I actually admire him to an extent.
No, I am not a communist, and no, I do not support any trampling on human rights. But the fact that because of Castro, a small island managed to stand up to the giant United States for so many decades meant Castro earned my respect.
Despite American bullying and extreme sanctions denying Cuba access to the world's biggest consumer market, Castro stayed in power and has remained defiant.
I fear that now that he is stepping down it will not be long before the United States turns the island into another vassal state swarming with American tourists demanding Big Macs and Budweisers.
An interesting article appeared in the Daily Dispatch. Written by Paul Whelan, a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the article argues that South Africa, rather than being a party-dominant democracy, is in fact a monocracy.
The dictionary definition of monocracy, courtesy of Google, is:
a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition).
Most people would react immediately by arguing that there is multiparty democracy in South Africa, but Whelan disagrees. It's a fascinating read.
See it here.
South Africa's state-owned power utility, Eskom, has made some rather bizarre moves and comments lately. For one thing, Andrew Etzinger, its general manager for resources and investment strategies, is reported as saying: “There has been no load shedding since last Monday — mainly thanks to divine intervention.”
Comforting words. Roughly translated, it means: "We don't know what we are doing, and the fact that there have been no rolling blackouts since last Monday has nothing to do with our abilities as a power supplier. We simply don't know why everything is working as it should at the moment."
The utility has created a new unit within its executive management structure. The name of the unit, "Confidence Building and Communication”, sounds eerily like something out of George Orwell's novel, 1984, doesn't it?
But the comedie-noire does not stop there, and while Eskom does some pretty strange things, it is not alone. According to one report:
A desperate effort late last year by Eskom to hire skilled engineers and technicians to head off the looming power crisis was badly hobbled by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which stepped in to prevent the utility from hiring foreigners without its consent.
The NIA wrote to Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga in November to warn him that Eskom’s facilities were national key points and that the presence of foreigners at them was a threat to national security.
So the presence of foreigners might compromise Eskom's ability to supply power to the country? Surely Eskom has proved it doesn't need foreigners to do that!
Certainly there is an increasing shortage of locals to help out. Another report indicates that 300 qualified engineers are leaving South Africa every year:
Large numbers of highly skilled South Africans, including engineers, are considering leaving the country in the wake of Eskom power debacle.
This has been confirmed by a variety of sources, including estate agents, removal companies and emigration consultants.
So if Eskom cannot find local engineers, and it can't hire foreign ones, what now?
It is no wonder that Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin says that South Africans can expect tight energy supply for another four years. Personally, I think that given the circumstances, the man is an optimist of note. Or perhaps "four years" is the new Orwellian term for "an indefinite period".
When a country's health minister consults witchdoctors, surely not all is well with the nation.
Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (she who believes AIDS can be fought with garlic and beetroot rather than antiretroviral drugs), says she will continue to consult "traditional healers" (the PC name for witchdoctors) to combat AIDS.
In this day of modern medical science, why must the people of South Africa be burdened with a quack who refuses to emerge from the Dark Ages? I propose that in this banana republic of ours, we change the name of her post to Minister of Alchemy.
That, at least, would be honest.
President Thabo Mbeki is delivering his State of the Nation speech in Parliament as I write. I am sure I will have some comment to put up here next week, but in the meantime here is his entire speech.
The Sunday Times this weekend listed the names of those guilty of plunging the country into darkness.
It said:
THESE are the people to blame for plunging South Africa into darkness.
President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin and former Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe and his successor, Jacob Maroga, ignored the signs of impending disaster for 10 years.
Not only did the government refuse to invest in new power stations in 1998, but ministers went into denial whenever they were warned.
The newspaper points out, among other things:
According to the White Paper on the Energy Policy of SA, approved by the Cabinet in 1998, Eskom warned that its surplus capacity would be fully used by 2007. The paper, signed by Penuell Maduna, who was then the Minerals and Energy Minister, advised ensuring that “the electricity needs of the next decade are met”. But Maduna was replaced by Mlambo-Ngcuka — who insisted there was no looming crisis. In 2003 she went as far as saying she had been assured by Gcabashe that South Africa would never run out of power.
Not only that, but Alec Erwin, who just has to be another candidate for South Africa's own Comical Ali, has to shoulder much of the blame.
Shortly after the series of power failures in the Western Cape in 2005, Erwin assured Parliament that there was “no national energy crisis”. In 2006 Erwin blamed “sabotage” for a crisis that hit Cape Town’s Koeberg nuclear power station.
This is the same Erwin who last week said the government was willing to "share" some of the blame!
Of course, the electorate will simply vote the ANC into power again and again and again, even though in any rational country this kind of thing would topple a government.
The Sunday Times article can be read here.
Our next president, Zacob Zuma, apparently does not have DSTV.
Johannesburg - The country's power crisis is an "unintended consequence" of the country's growing economy, ANC president Jacob Zuma said at the University of Zurich on Monday.
According to a copy of his speech released by the party in Johannesburg, Zuma said: "The strides we have made since 1994 in growing our economy and improving the quality of life of our people have brought along such a serious pressure on our energy sources." (Full report here.)
This is exactly the same line that Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin trotted out earlier. Can it be that Zuma did not watch Carte Blanche on Sunday night? In the light of that exposé, Zuma is joining the list of nominees for South Africa's own Comical Ali.
While we're on the subject, did you know that ANC no longer means African National Congress? It now stands for Another Night with Candles.
This story ran this morning:
Pretoria - Government considers the "unprecedented and unplanned" outages affecting South Africans across the country as a national emergency, the Public Enterprises Minister, Alec Erwin, said on Friday.
"It is clear that we are running our power system at utilisation levels that are overstretching maintenance and if we do not stabilize this we could drive our system into higher level of stress... this we can not do," he said.
The story, which can be read here, goes on to say that South Africa's economic growth can continue "if we change our behaviour and become more energy efficient". He adds that government has to share the blame for the crisis.
I'm sorry - did he say share the blame?
For 10 years, the government was told that if more power stations were not built, the country would run into a massive energy crisis. The government ignored appeals. So the public, unaware of the looming crisis, carried on as normal.
Now the government says the public must change its behaviour as a result, and government must share the blame. Share with whom? With those the government is supposed to serve and protect from this kind of thing?
As far as I am concerned, the people of South Africa pay the government, through our taxes, to take the responsibility for service delivery. That government has failed to stem the crime problem, and it has failed to deliver the infrastructure we need. I say it is time that this government acknowledged its failure and did the decent thing. Stand down and let a new government attempt to fix up this mess. The government must take the blame, not share it.
Simply declaring a national emergency does not help if you do not actually DO something.
