South Africa is officially in a recession, caused entirely
by the crackpot policies adopted by the ANC, in defiance of all the advice
offered them by people who understand economics, who have studied history, and
who can see clearly where it is all headed. Ramaphosa assumed the Presidency,
making promises that no-one believed he could keep, indeed, had any intention of
keeping. His first act was to appoint to his Cabinet a group of corrupt,
incompetent and failed Ministers, none of whom has demonstrated any
understanding of modern economic thought, including several who have been found
by supposedly righteous bodies to have been corrupt and incompetent to hold any
public office. He has spoken several times and, tediously, at length, without
telling South Africa what his plans really are to correct the course the
country is on, and he has announced grand investment plans, miraculously
falling into his lap, without disclosing what those plans really entail, or
what the cost will be for the country of his financial rescue, if that is what
they are.
South Africa is in a recession that could have been foreseen
three years ago, at a time the ANC nominees in Parliament were gleefully
telling the electorate that Jacob Zuma was the bee’s knees, totally
disregarding the facts already clearly pointed out by the Constitutional Court,
that he was delinquent in failing in his observance of his duties under the
much-vaunted Constitution, clearly a criminal act of the worst kind, and
clearly disregarding the compelling evidence of judgement after judgement
declaring the functioning of the State to be both dishonest and incompetent.
Ramaphosa took power, declaring that he would fix those failures, and then
appointed David Mabuza as Deputy President, an act that induced no less a
journalistic great then the New York Times to point out in painful terms that
South Africa was now a Mafia state. Ramaphosa and his ANC did nothing to
correct this report, allowing Mabuza to make a pretentious statement that, in
effect, he was no more dishonest than Jacob Zuma.
South Africa is in a recession that will endure for years to
come, with the difficulties facing the ANC of continuing to support the
ever-more-rapidly declining State-Owned Entities, to provide the funding to keep
buying the favour of the beneficiaries of the SASSA grants when it comes to
election day, to continue to find ways to explain how Jan van Riebeeck and his
horde of White Monopoly Capitalists are responsible for the ever-rising
unemployment figures, the declining performance of the education sector, the
public health sector, the public administration sector and all the other
problems that are popping up with annoying regularity. That recession will end,
in real terms, when the IMF is begged for assistance by the Government, and
imposes draconian rules on public expenditure and control of corruption. The
years until then will be more than painful to the South African public, as an
increasing share of GDP is required to cover the interest payments on the money
that the Government has thrown at the twin needs of finding projects that can
be ripped off by the cadres and of buying votes to remain in power while they
continue their depredations. Surely the daily horror reports from various
Commissions, stating how Jacob Zuma and his gang, many of whom are still in the
Ramaphosa Cabinet, viewed South Africa as their private piggy bank, to be
plundered at will, how the Gauteng Provincial Government, in league with the
national Department of Health oversaw the killing of 169 mentally-ill patients,
with no apparent consequences for any of those ultimately responsible for the
tragedy (in any sane country, the national Government would have fallen: in
South Africa, not even the Provincial MEC for Health has resigned, never mind
being put behind bars), while the Minister of Health plows ahead with the
newest plan to rip off the public while, at the same time decimating the health
care system and driving doctors to seek other homelands where they can earn an
honest living. And all the while, we are sending aspirant Black doctors to
learn their skills in Cuba, in Spanish, and Russia, in Russian, while the White
students who want to study to serve their country in the medical field, are
being sidelined, because the universities have a quota of Black students to
fill, regardless of their educational standard.
South Africa is in a recession as a result of the
harebrained socialist policies of the ANC, and Ramaphosa goes to China to
negotiate assistance from the Chinese Communist Party to enhance the ANC’s
commitment to the very policies that have brought us to this.
The only light on the horizon is the faint glimmering from
business that they have the power to stand up to the Government and the Unions.
They are not investing the spare funds at their command in the local economy,
and it is now time for them to state that they will no longer comply with the
insanity of the BBEEE policies that have made the country’s businesses uncompetitive
on the international market, that they will no longer employ the workers at the
blackmail rates enforced by the unions, that they will wind down their
businesses until the government illustrates convincingly a commitment to
supporting the very business world that earns the profits to provide the taxes
that the Government needs, that employs the millions of workers who agitate
daily against the ‘plague of capitalism’ that employs them. There is no doubt
that this will hurt in the short term, but, if they had done this ten years
ago, and brought the ANC to the realization that they can only command if
others obey, South Africa would have been a booming economy today. How much is
the cost of a forsaken additional annual growth of at least 5%, a figure that
could easily have been attained under an effective Government? If the price is
too much, close your business now, because it will be paid unless the
Government is brought to understand where the wealth of the country is
generated.
The price will be paid, out of a much less wealthy economy
than we have even now. The sooner the price is paid, the sooner will come the
recovery, and the easier it will be for all of us.
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