Now we know What is Next

Hardly had the question been asked, what Zuma plans to do after he has brought the country to its knees by precipitating ratings downgrades by two of the three Ratings Agencies, with the third almost certain to follow, when he gave an indication of his plans.

It requires no great understanding to realize that the catastrophe that has been launched by Zuma and his one-man Party, the ANC. The Ratings downgrade is almost certain to bring about a marked rise in inflation, resulting in large increases in interest rates, a withdrawal of international investors from the country (and probably, to a lesser extent, from the continent as a fear of contagion from the largest industrial economy in Africa grows), a sharp decline in new investment and a withdrawal of investment plans, with a concomitant decline in employment, sharply reduced tax collections and so of non-loan funds available to fund the Governments activities, while, at the same time, the funding by loan investors will dry up. The knock on effects throughout the economy will be large, and there is no indication that Zuma or his yes-men understand precisely what is almost certain to come down on them. The country is facing a coming together of a huge set of problems and difficulties, and the Government that will be required to solve them has demonstrated that it has no capability, no plans, to meet them.

The most outstanding comment that Zuma has made to the Ratings downgrade is that BRICS is establishing its own Ratings Agency, which will not be an ‘agent’ of Western imperialists. He seems to believe that a Rating certificate will have the same effect on investors as he believes a Matriculation certificate has on employers, that the certificate in itself establishes a level of creditworthiness. That can be understood in a man who failed to secure even a matriculation certificate, but such a naive belief is inexcusable in a man who is charged with managing the economic (and education) affairs of an advanced country. The certificate is meaningful only to the extent that investors can believe that it reflects adequately the creditworthiness of the economy, just as employers believe that the matriculation certificate adequately reflects the standard of education of the potential employee. The current matriculation certificate does not, nor will a BRICS Rating certificate. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply demonstrating an abject lack of understanding.

Zuma has shown the route he plans to take in countering the public demonstrations by persons who object to his replacement of an experienced and reasonably competent Minister of Finance and his Deputy with a pair of compliant yes-men, both of whom have demonstrated their lack of capability in the past, and continue to do so now. The plan is clear – blame it all on the Whites. He complained at the Chris Hani Memorial Ceremony that the protest marches show a large element of racism, in both their composition of protestors and in the posters showing that Whites believe that Blacks are baboons. He chose not to be specific in either charge. A scanning of photographs of the crowds at each of the large demonstrations reveals that an overwhelming proportion of the large numbers present were Black, while the same photographs failed to show even one poster claiming that a White believed that Blacks were baboons, or even inferior in any way to Whites. Once again, Zuma has shown his absolute conviction that a lie, no matter how incredible, is a good substitute for an inconvenient truth. He showed that conviction during the Nkandla scandal, where he suborned his Minister of Police to lie to Parliament, in breach of his sacred Oath of Office, when he stated that he did not know that so much money was being spent on his private home, and subsequently in his ‘apology’ to the people of South Africa for their misunderstanding of his intention to pay back the money, a blatant insult to the people for which he went unpunished. Unfortunately, his many brainwashed minions will take his words at face value. It is highly probable that the President, in his increasingly frantic and desperate attempts to escape jail time at the end of his term, has taken his policy of racialization of the ideological and economic disputes to a new level, bringing back the threat of civil war that Nelson Mandela was able to subdue in the 1990s. For this act alone, Zuma must fall. South Africa, like it or not, is dependent on the Whites for its economic wellbeing, and they continue to do a fair job in that, despite repeated attempts by two racialist Presidents, first Mbeki and now Zuma, to foil their efforts at bringing their Black compatriots up to the standard of competence that will enable them to be true partners in economic success. (This is not a racialist statement – an effective manager requires both education and experience, gained with the assistance of a more experienced mentor over many years. Unfortunately, Whites have the experience, and most Blacks do not. That is a bald fact, and it must be accepted if the country is to make progress towards a brighter future. Most Whites and most Blacks accept this truth and work hard towards providing the equalization needed, but Zuma and his faction of the ANC do not want to know this.)

As the Ratings downgrade has belatedly demonstrated, South Africa has need of radical changes, the replacement of the sitting President being the most urgent of them, closely followed by its drift towards the Venezuela model of communism. If the ANC fails to do this, it will be brought about by other means. History has a way of resolving problems such as those created by Zuma, as can be seen in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, Honecker, Mao, Castro and their ilk, sometimes less pleasantly, as with Mussolini and Gaddafi, and sometimes over the longer term, but it will happen, and Zuma and Mbeki will eventually be assigned to the trash heap of dishonest men, alongside Botha and others who could not see the truth when it hit them on the head.

Supervision is not Racism

During a recent panel discussion on SABC TV, one contributor stated that the Whites were racists, supporting this claim by alluding to is observation that, although White companies employed Black managers to comply with BBEEE regulations, they did not trust the Black managers, and appointed Whites to ‘supervise’ them.  He viewed this as racist.

Perhaps a brief discussion of capitalist economics will help to clarify the position.  Let us take as a basis the assertion made by this man and assume it to be correct, in the context of his business environment.  It should be noted that it is almost certainly not correct in all cases, as will be discussed later.

A business is in operation with the prime objective of earning a profit.  Profit is achieved by earning an income, from which all costs are deducted.  A  business is not there to satisfy the objectives of Government or the Trade Unions, nor to perform charitable works, to elevate the oppressed, to train workers, or any such noble aims.  They are there to earn a profit.  If they do not, they will cease to exist, and all who are dependent on them will lose out – the workers will lose their wage-earning positions, the shareholders will lose their investment and the return on that investment they intended to earn.  Any other objective is peripheral.

When a business employs a person in any capacity, it expects him or her to perform according to expectations.  Job descriptions are written, performance appraisals are conducted, rules and requirements are set and discussed with the employee.  This may be formal or informal, depending on the sophistication of the organization.  Generally, in a free society, the business will employ the person it considers best able to perform according to expectations, and the degree of supervision will be designed to cover the areas of uncertainty – more initially, and less as confidence is gained in the capabilities of the employee.  Under the rules and regulations applying in South Africa, the business is not free to employ the best person for the job.  It is obliged to employ a certain proportion of management and other staff from designated groups.  This, in itself, is a significant constraint on the economic effectiveness of the business.  Of course, in some cases, the business is fortunate in finding a Black employee who is sufficiently well-educated, sufficiently experienced and coming from an appropriate background, which enables that employee to function as effectively as the business requires.  Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and the less-perfect employee is taken on in the hope that he or she will learn the job, gain the experience and the educational requirements, and modify an inappropriate world view over time, and so become an effective employee in that position.  Until that happens, the degree of supervision must be intensified, in order to ensure that the outcomes of the work of the employee are adequate.  In some cases, this may take the form of a ‘shadow-manager’, someone with the required qualities who is able to correct what is done incorrectly, to guide the decision-making process and to ensure that the outcomes are correct.  In this way, the business is able to satisfy the BBEEE regulations and to perform the functions that it must to earn the profit that is the essential element of its existence.  It is not racist.  The BBEEE regulations that force the employment of an under-educated, under-experienced and otherwise inappropriate person are the racist elements of this situation, not the way that businesses are forced to deal with the problems that arise from them.  Those regulations presume that every person is born with the capability to be an effective manager, Director or even State President.  It needs little intelligence or understanding to realize that this is not the case.  In the same way as a child needs many years of education to be considered capable of doing most jobs, the educated child is merely a beginner when it comes to coping with the processes and decisions inherent in any management position.  Even a university graduate requires years of experience, of exposure to the real world and of guidance from a more experienced person, before he or she can be considered to be competent in a senior management role.

To revert to the prime objective of a business, the making of profit, it is clear that the BBEEE regulations inject a very large cost element into a business, unless the business is able to employ the right person for the job without any constraints.  There can be little doubt that, if a Black person stood out as the best person for a job, the business would hire him or her.  The same would apply if a White person stood out as the best.  In a situation where the Black candidate and the White candidate were equal in suitability, the compatibility of that person to the organization might become a deciding factor, a factor which might then take on racial overtones, but even then, the factor of compatibility would probably also include a consideration of the level of friction caused by the employment of a Black person in White surroundings, or vice versa, a factor relating to the efficiency and effectiveness of the business.  In the making of profit, race is certainly not a material factor.  It is very seldom, even in good business conditions, and almost never in the currently hard business operational conditions, that a business would consciously decide to impose on itself an additional, unnecessary cost factor, such as the employment of a ‘shadow manager’ to supervise a Black manager, unless it considered t to be necessary to do the job.

The man who complained that ‘White businesses do not trust Black managers’ and are therefore racist should, in fact, be grateful for the opportunity those businesses grant to the Black employee to learn how to do the job from a White, who almost certainly does not enjoy the requirements of his position.

The Black employee is not to blame for not fulfilling the job requirements, nor is the business to blame for not believing that he cannot.  If there is anyone to blame, it is the Government, for forcing the business to put him in that position in an unqualified state.  The White who might otherwise hold that position would have gained it by having acquired a good education, which the Government does not provide, by having worked his or her way up the ladder, gaining relevant experience and knowhow over a long period, and by having absorbed the culture and outlook required to put the education and experience to work.  It is well-recognised that Indian and Jewish businesspersons are generally excellent.  One of the reasons for that is that both of those races have a culture of including children in business matters from a very early age.  They absorb the thinking and understanding that will be needed in their future lives, and they are able to extract from their education and experience that which is relevant to the business problems they now face.  Unfortunately, Blacks, as well as many Whites, do not have that advantage, and have to learn it the hard way.  Many do not.  Black managers who are supervised by Whites should consider themselves to be very fortunate to have the experienced tutelage, and they should apply themselves to the learning that can come of it.  That learning will be considerably hampered by a belief that they are the victims of racism.