Saturday, 19 September 2020

Joe Slovo and Economic Predictions

 The extract below from the eBook ‘Marloth’ is a frightening statement of the situation that exists right now in South Africa.

“Shortly after 1994, when the new democracy was instituted, Joe Slovo, the leader of the South African Communist Party, was asked in a television debate with the Chief Editor of a major newspaper why, when almost every other Communist government around the world had collapsed, he thought that Communism would succeed in South Africa. His response was that Communism needed a stock of capital to succeed. South Africa had that. The Editor asked what would happen when that capital stock was exhausted. Slovo replied that they would then move to another system! I know several highly competent economists who believe that the country is heading rapidly towards that point. The South African Government bonds have been downgraded by the ratings agencies, as have the major banks. The exchange rate is heading south, major companies that were proudly South African are relocating their head offices to other countries, and many of the companies that had major investments in the country are pulling out. The best of our university graduates can hardly wait until they graduate to start looking for jobs in more civilized countries. The signs are clear if you care to look for them.”

The book was written and published in 2014, and the prediction made then has become a stark reality in the lives of the average South African. Even without the ravages of Covid-19 and the poor handling of the epidemic by the government, it was clear to any thinking person that the roadmap the government was following was destined to lead to an economic and fiscal cliff. The pandemic has served to speed up the bus in which we are all passengers, all of us relying on the driver to correct his course before we reach that cliff. Several of the smarter passengers saw the facts early, and jumped off the bus, accepting the injuries they would suffer as a small price to avoid the collapse that they saw to be inevitable. The rest sit in the bus, holding on, white-knuckled, as the bus veers erratically but inevitably towards the economic collapse now looking to be not far ahead.

If the citizens of the country are really earnest about saving their country, now is the time for them to act. Now is the time to take Joe Slovo’s advice and find another system of economic management. Now is the time to force the voters to understand that no others will come to our aid, not Russia, not China, not the AU.

South Africans are, in general, good-hearted and hardworking people, willing to do what is needed, if someone shows them the goal and the way to get there. Most of them would rather work at a job to earn their living, rather than relying on ‘gifts from the ANC’, gifts which can only come if there is an economy capable of earning the profits that will be taxed. Most of them are capable of understanding what the economic facts of life are, what needs to be done to dig themselves out of the hole that the Marxist promises of ‘their’ Party have trapped them in. It will be a slow and painful process, much slower and more painful than it could have been if it had started in 2014 or even earlier, but it will have a result that every honest citizen will be able to point to with pride. It will set the country on the road to taking its place amongst the leading countries of the world.

Marloth is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAXHGG0


Wednesday, 16 September 2020

The ANC SANDF Flight to Zimbabwe

 It has now been firmly established that several senior ANC members flew to Zimbabwe ‘on a mission to assist Zimbabwe’. The flight was unauthorised under the lockdown regulations and under the laws governing the use of Military assets. It also raises concerns on how the South African foreign policy, the exclusive prerogative of Government, is being conducted by Party members who are not elected and are not even Members of Parliament, as well as the extent to which the ANC considers itself to be bound by the laws and regulations that have brought near-collapse to the country.

The simple fact is that the flight meets the definition of fraud – the unauthorised use of the asset of another to gain a benefit for the Party. As such, the persons involved should be charged with the criminal offence it was. Fraud is, apparently, a standard practice in the ANC. Several senior figures have been found guilty of fraud, and many more would be, if they were not protected by the Party and sheltered by senior officials in government. The situation is so bad that the Judge President of the Cape Supreme Court has been fighting a rearguard action against several serious charges by his fellow Judges for twelve years (!), and is now facing a charge of planning the assassination of another Judge! The situation is so bad that it would be highly unusual for the President of the country, the man who swore an Oath of Office which requires him to protect the citizens of the country, not the members of his Party, and to uphold the laws of South Africa, to enforce the laws, as he would against, for instance, an estate agent who made an innocent remark about the dozens of ‘young monkeys’ on the beach, using words that are ubiquitous in the English-speaking world, to describe young children seen as amusing and cute. In that case, the ‘law’ required only days to haul her before a Tribunal, which levied an extraordinarily heavy fine, and then before Court, for the same ‘offence’, which levied a further heavy penalty. That abuse of Human Rights stands in stark contrast to the absolute lack of action against well-documented corruption by the ANC and its members over many years of its abuse of the State positions held by its members, as well as fraudulent action by others, such as the leadership of Steinhof, both of which have cost the country and its citizens dearly, and in all of which cases the culprits continue to run free amongst the citizens they have defrauded.

Unfortunately, there is little to zero likelihood of the culprits being charged or subjected to appropriate penalties under law.

Ask yourself, if a White citizen were to board an Air Force flight so that he could negotiate with someone in another country, would the same leniency be applied to him? (You can stop laughing at that thought!) Now ask yourself, Why?

Added to the crime is the much bigger concern that the elected members of the Legislature and/or the Executive, worthless though they may be, are not dong the job they are paid to do, but handing it over to members of the Party, people who are not elected and have no accountability to the government or the people. The ANC has ignored the plight of the people of Zimbabwe for decades, sitting on their hands while the dictatorial and brutal government of that country has committed crimes coming close to genocide, bringing the country to a state of continuing collapse, while they bask in their stolen wealth. The Mbeki policy of ‘do nothing to upset a fellow ‘Freedom Fighter’ turned dictator and abuser of his nation’ masquerading under the cloak of ‘quiet diplomacy’ instigated by Thabo Mbeki and perpetuated by Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa), was clearly aimed at not creating an atmosphere in the African Union which would hold such criminals to account for their action. That was absolute proof that the African Union exists to protect the chummy club of top politicians, and not the people of its member nations. That proof was reinforced by the fact that Omar al Bashir, a man wanted by the International Criminal Court on a charge of genocide, was allowed by Jacob Zuma and his ANC to go free, against the order of a competent South African Court (at a time when Ramaphosa was Deputy President). Do we need further proof that the running of the country, a task entrusted by the Constitution to the Executive under the stewardship of Parliament, has been outsourced? The only question is whether that was the subject of a sale by the President to his Party, the price being the Presidency, or if the President is a partner in the venture to take as much from the Presidency as can be arranged, before the citizens catch up with them.

As an increasing number of people (including people of all races who have seen that there is no prospect of unseating the criminal cabal running the country while there is still some small amount of the economy to be saved) are talking of violent action even amounting to civil war. One can only hope that the President and his men understand that a break from the gang of criminals is preferable to dangling at the end of a rope over a lightple.

Ramaphosa's Solution to Corruption

 

If Ramaphosa had a real desire to wipe out corruption, he would have introduced a body at government level to do the work. The Integrity Commission of the ANC, like all the other Commissions used by the ANC over the years, has no teeth, and no intention to produce anything more than a bland recommendation that ‘all is fine. No worries.’ If you doubt that, look at the record of the Seriti Commission, which set the benchmark for Commissions and Committees. What South Africa really needs is a body that a priori assess the honesty, integrity and suitability for the position to be held by the candidate before he or she is given the awesome power held by MPs, Ministers, the President, Directors General of Departments and their deputies, and other such positions. The Financial Services industry is required by law to assess these qualities in their candidates for high office. Why should a person who holds an office managing billions of Rands of public money be of a lower standard? If Parliament sees this form of check as essential for the Director of an investment brokerage, why are they not pressing for the same rules to apply? Why is Ramaphosa holding back on this, instead presenting as his ‘solution’ to the corruption pandemic that has swept the land since 1994 the ‘requiring’ of a toothless lapdog with no responsibility to the citizens or to Parliament to undertake the ‘vetting’ (without publication of the results) of the huge number of Party members who routinely indulge in ripping off the public purse?

It is no secret that the ANC itself, as well as its cadres, have been deeply involved in corrupt activities since the earliest days. Corruption is its very lifeblood, funding election campaigns and Party activities of every sort. To walk away from that sort of cash, and revert to a system in which the rights and needs of the citizens are the first priority of the government, as Mandela professed to believe, would require a fundamental reassessment of priorities and a realignment of the Party. Ramaphosa, a man noted for inaction, except at the urgent behest of co-directors such as those requesting him to seek stronger Police action at Marikana, is not the leader’ we need to correct the disastrous course the Ship of State is on. His passive acceptance of the dictates of Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Beki Cele during the Covid-19 fiasco that has brought us so much closer to the rocks of disaster, while also putting huge sums in the pockets of the criminals amongst us, is a clear indication that he is ‘holding down a position’ while allowing (unelected) others to dictate policies, without even the rubber-stamping previously obtained from Parliament. Until we see at least five Cabinet Ministers in orange overalls, no intelligent investor will even put South Africa on his list of places to develop industry. That won’t happen, so expect more of the same.