Should the Courts interfere in Government?

The ANC and its multitudinous affiliates have started a campaign against the Courts ‘interfering in the rights of the Executive’, referring to the numerous cases that have been brought, in particular, against Jacob Zuma. However they fail to ask why this is so.

As in any situation where a problem is identified, the first steps in solving a problem are to define the problem and then to isolate the cause. Only then can any meaningful progress be made in solving it. Politicians seem prone to forget, or simply to ignore, these elementary steps, and the ‘uncouth rabble’ that makes up such a large proportion of Zuma’s supporters suffer from this syndrome to an extreme.

What is the real problem underlying the increasing recourse to the Courts?

The real problem is that the President and the Executive in general have increasingly ignored the laws that govern them, and particularly the Constitution, treating them as bothersome at best, and irrelevant to their elevated status. They have been supported in this by the ANC Party machinery, which seems to be bent, and bent upon maintaining this criminal President in his office of power. The Executive is running wild, and Parliament, under the stranglehold of the unrepresentative ANC’s NEC, supports the illegalities and lunacies. The sole aim of the majority in Parliament seems to be retaining power, regardless of the duties imposed on the MPs to represent the people, by demanding and obtaining accountability by the Executive, and by demanding that the Executive complies in every respect with the law. In the face of this breach of its duties by the legislature, the Opposition Parties and the people have no alternative other than to resort to the Courts to ensure compliance with the law by the Executive.

Examples of this are legion. Nkandla springs to mind as the prime instance where the President and his crooked Ministers abused their positions of power in an attempt to steal from the people, misleading a compliant Parliament by their transparent lies. The only way to ensure that the rule of law was applied was to seek recourse from the Court. Was that wrong? The only thing that could be said to be wrong about the matter was that it was necessary to go to Court to ensure that the law was applied. If the President and his men, from Ministers down to MPs, had complied with the laws in the first place, the Court would not have become involved. The same situation was applied in the default by the Minister of Social Security in complying with a Constitutional Court Order that the contract with CPS was unlawful. She knew the Order, yet she carefully refrained from doing anything to comply with it. When civil society obtained a further Order from the Court to ensure that the social grants would be paid, the Minister was more than surly, and has since declared that SASSA, which was set up with the mandate to ensure that it was able to pay the social grants itself, will not be able to do so within the next five years. That is a remarkable claim, given that CPS was able to set up the mechanism within a year. The statement by the Minister must, in any responsible society, result in another intervention by the Court. The actions of the Minister since the original Court Order would surely have resulted in the Minister being replaced, if South Africa had not been under the quasi-dictatorship of a gang of criminals, and her most recent statement should have resulted in an outcry by all MPs, regardless of Party, against the continued tenure of a Minister who has sown herself to be, at the least, incompetent, yet the ANC cadres have done nothing. Watch this space for the next Court intervention. The most recent attempt to pay Brian Molefe an ‘early retirement’ amount of R30 million, since replaced by a reinstatement of this tainted deployee as CEO of Eskom, with the blithe explanation that placing a man who could never be viewed as a fit and proper person in control of a major driver of the economy, as well as of bribes, finder’s fees and equity participations in contracting suppliers would be cheaper than fighting a Court battle in respect of non-payment of the R30 million after only two years of service. On this basis alone, Lynn Brown should be sentenced to 30 years of hard labour on Robben Island for treating the public as unthinking morons.

Now that it is clear that the real problem to be solved is the ability of the President and his executive to flout the law, it is possible to devise ways to ensure that the honesty, integrity and law-abiding character of the Courts and the Public Protector (sadly, no longer visible, now that Zuma has replaced a woman of integrity with a compliant puppet in the position) are no longer required to ensure that the letter and the spirit of the Constitution will be observed.

The first of these will be to place the appointment of the Ministers and senior officials of State Departments and State Owned Entities under the control of a Committee of Parliament, consisting of an equal number of governing Party members and Opposition Members, with the mandate to determine whether the candidates are fit and proper persons in respect of their qualifications, experience, conduct and integrity, and having the power to terminate their appointment if it is found that such state of fit and proper no longer exists. Such Committee shall make any appointment approval with a majority of 75%. It is not unreasonable to require that at least three-quarters of the representatives of the public trust the people running the activities that are paid by the Government.

The second would be to require that the President be elected independently by a vote by the electorate, after having obtained the approval of the Committee, with the Committee having the right to call a further election of the President at any time if it considers, by simple majority vote (held under conditions of secrecy) that the President has breached the Constitution or his oath of office, which shall be presumed if a competent Court issues an Order declaring that there has been such a breach.

The third would be to replace the current electoral system with one under which the MPs are directly responsible to their electorate, with the right of the electorate, by a petition signed by at least 25% of qualified voters, to demand a new election for that seat. The MPs would have an obligation to report to the electorate in open public meeting on their voting performance every quarter.

The fourth would be to ban any system under which a Party can force or coerce an MP to vote in a particular way. The requirement would reinforce the principle that MPs are directly responsible to the voters in their Ward, and must take directions and advice from those voters.

The fifth would be to reduce the salaries of MPs, Ministers and senior public officials, including their benefits, to a level commensurate with a similar position in the private sphere, and each such person will be subject to a performance appraisal by a dispassionate person. The performance requirements and the appraisal would be available to the public.

In summary, the intervention of the Courts in the affairs of Government is a vital means to hold of Government to account in its actions. The fact that such intervention has been necessary with increasing frequency is the problem, not the fact that a right which is enshrined in the Constitution should be used. The real problem to be addressed is the fact that the Government of South Africa has been captured by a gang of criminals.

Why must Citizens demand Free Speech?

The question comes up sometimes, why I write a blog which must be seen as critical of government and the way we citizens do things. The question sometimes arises why I raise the same issues in other ways in my books. The answer came in a conversation I had with a good friend, an elderly person with a very good education, majoring in economics. The person is one who, I would expect, would be as aware as I am about what is going wrong in our society, and what the consequences are likely to be. The conversation referred to a telephone conversation regarding communications via the internet, during which I mentioned the fact that there is extensive surveillance of private communications between individuals over supposedly secure channels, without any need or reason for such surveillance. After all, the vast majority of the public have no intention to bring about the downfall of the Government by illicit means. It is a known fact that the ruling Party views ‘regime change’ as a particularly despicable act, and any intention to do so in any way as an act of treason. This, belief, however, is not justified. The Constitution makes it abundantly clear that it is the responsibility, and the duty, of citizens to keep tabs on what the Government, and particularly the political arm of it, is doing, and to act positively to bring about a change when they see that the Government is not acting in the legitimate interests of the citizens. Part of that process is communicating with others what the Government is doing wrong, so that knowledge, the most dangerous adversary of unbridled wrongdoing, is brought to the minds of the voters, who can then exercise their legitimate rights. Dictatorial Governments, and, most obviously, Parties exercising the practices of the communist brainwashers, do not want the public to know what they are doing, or what the real consequences of their acts will be. Most citizens do not have degrees in Economics or Logic, or even understanding of the double-speak that is practiced by dishonest politicians. In fact, most people seldom take the time to analyse the news, limited though it is, to gain the understanding that is necessary for them to carry out their function as responsible citizens. As the South African Communist Party said, if the average voter would read a newspaper, the ANC would not be re-elected. The average voter does not read a newspaper, relying instead on what people with a particular axe to grind tells them of the state of affairs in the nation, and does not take the time, indeed does not have the mental equipment, to evaluate what they are told. It is no surprise that evil people are able to gain ascendancy in a country, as they have in South Africa, and then proceed to plunder the country for their own enrichment. And the worst of it is that they are generally prepared to do things that will pay the (sometimes) small percentage to them, ignoring the massive damage that it will do to the rest of the economy. A good example of this is the corruption that has been witnessed at Eskom. The loss to the public, although small in terms of the total volume of funds flowing through that entity, has been enormous in economic terms, as the reliable supply of power at an economic cost is recognized as a prime driver of economic activity. The unreliability of the supply by Eskom, and the ever-increasing cost of it, has been a significant driver of the decline of mining and industry in the country, resulting in a downgrade in the country’s securities and a rate of unemployment in reality of around 50%. If one is seeking economic crimes to track down and redress, Eskom and the crooks associated with it must be prime targets, all of them known to the newspaper, and yet, surprisingly, despite the hundreds of millions spent on State Security and Criminal Intelligence, not to mention Priority Crimes Investigation, not one person has been charged with wrongdoing!

There can be little doubt that an evaluation of the ‘work’ done by all of those involved in surveillance of the citizens will reveal that remarkably little of value has resulted. That evaluation would certainly show that much of the (legally wrongful) surveillance has been used for illicit purposes. Many innocent, but politically-aware people have mentioned that facts that should have been private have come out in unexpected places, leading them to believe that their private communications have been subject to eavesdropping. This is a classical tactic of authoritarian regimes, such as the Soviet Russian, the communist East German and the communist Cuban, and, far from gathering information for a legitimate prosecution of individuals intending unlawful conduct, it is used as a means of terrorizing dissident portions of the population. It is no less than State-sponsored terrorism of the people.

In these circumstances, it is close to criminally negligent of people to ignore the manifestations of wrongdoing by the Government or any organ of it. It is an abandonment of rights that thousands suffered to gain. It is the duty of every citizen to know, as accurately as may be possible, what the Government is doing to them and in their name. It is not acceptable to give the excuse that ‘it does not affect me’. It does affect you. Wrongdoing in any form affects everyone, without exception. An injury to my rights is an affront to every citizen, on every side of the political spectrum. Everyone has a right to express what he believes, in accordance with the Constitution, and everyone must afford him or her that right. Any attempt to obstruct that right is a grievous affront to those who suffered to create it.

Statistics and Lies

The Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant, has once again complained that companies are not adhering to the wishes of Government in the employment of Blacks and women in senior positions. She quoted a series of statistics, to prove that she really has no understanding of the situation, and that the expectations of businesspeople are being realized.

“According to Statistics SA’s 2016 third quarter figures, whites account for 9.5% of the economically active population (EAP) and black Africans 78%. The commission’s 2016-17 report says whites fill 68.5% of top management jobs, six times their EAP. Africans account for 14.4%. Males fill 78% of top management jobs. Whites account for 58.1% of senior managers compared to 22.1% of Africans. At the lower levels, Africans fare better, but still don’t match their EAP figures, accounting for 60.2% of skilled technical workers and 76.1% of semi-skilled workers.

“The continued high rate at which the white group appears to be afforded preferential treatment for recruitment, promotion and training opportunities at [top management] level is of concern. This trend renders it highly unlikely to achieve equitable representation at this level in the near future,” concluded the report [by the Commission for Employment Equity]. The situation is similar at senior management level.”

Frightening figures, when viewed from the point of view of the Government, figures which demonstrate the same lack of effectiveness as the Government under the ANC has shown in virtually every other sphere of the economy in which it has been active. However, when viewed rationally, the figures are both understandable and encouraging.

Let us look at some of the details, and really understand them.

Whites fill 68.5% of top management jobs, six times their EAP. Africans account for 14.4%, while Whites account for 9.5% of the economically active population (EAP) and Black Africans 78%.

Apart from the factually incorrect description of Blacks as ‘black Africans (which ignores the fact that numerous Whites are descended from families that have been in South Africa as long as most of the Black families), one must understand that a large proportion of the economically active Black population is engaged in work which has no potential to develop their education, knowledge and skills to the level where they can become effective top management. The statistics of that proportion are not presently available to the writer, but it is a safe bet to assume that, of the 78%, at least 50% are not qualified in any way and have little prospect of becoming qualified for a top management job, and another 20% of the remaining 38% are not yet old enough to have gained the experience required. Yes, top management requires many years of experience. If the Blacks who are educationally-qualified for the top management jobs had started their climb up the ladder in 1994 (assuming an adequate education), they would have gained 23 years of experience. How many of the top managers of large companies are aged less than 44 years? Again the statistics are not available, but the answer is certainly less than a handful. Why 44 years? Assume that an aspirant for top management completes Matric at 18, then a three-year degree, that person started work at age 21. Add the 23 years since 1994. He or she is now aged 44. Most of the Blacks who will become top managers of large companies are still working their way up the ladder, after gaining a good education and years of experience in many of the activities that are essential knowledge for the top job. In an interview on SABC this morning, the Minister of Social Security inadvertently confirmed this fact, when she stated that SASSA required at least five years to establish an in-house ability to pay social grants, after having worked on the problem since 2014 – a total of 8 years to do a project that a competent European or American company would certainly complete within 2 years (after all, CPS was able to develop the ability within less than a year!). She explained that the organization of SASSA, which was set up to do only the payment of social grants, consisted of low-level management. That statement is one of the few believable statements by the Minister, who has become known for obfuscation, circumlocution and even the use of Russian, in answering embarrassing questions. The simple fact, known to all of the companies burdened by the law requiring them to employ a certain ratio of ‘previously disadvantaged persons’. Is that there are simply far too few competent Black persons with the education, qualifications, skills and experience required to perform competently in a normal economy, never mind the minefield that the South African economy has become under ANC rule.

The situation on the ground is that a company’s prime requirement is to earn a profit for the shareholders. Once that is being done, the company has the freedom to comply with all the other nice-to-have objectives, such as Black Economic Empowerment. To do that, every top manager must perform at the peak level of performance expected from him or her. Where the profit flow is good, there is enough surplus cash to do the things that are required to meet the Government’s unrealistic expectation (that every Black is born with all the skills and experience to perform excellently – they are not, nor are Whites, Indians, Coloureds or Chinese), with a person being appointed to do a job that he or she is not qualified or experienced to do, supplementing his or her efforts with a skilled (probably White or Indian) who will filter out the gross mistakes deficiencies and add some on-the-job training in the process. That, of course, introduces managerial friction and inefficiency, and adds a considerable burden of cost, all of which weaken the market position of the company and detract from the attractiveness of the country as an investment destination. If you doubt this, ask why so many ‘proudly South African’ companies have largely withdrawn from the country (e.g. Anglo American, S A Breweries, Gencor) and others are doing whatever they can to minimize their exposure to South Africa. Ask why the economy is in a decline, where, previously, it was regarded as the ‘engine of Africa. Ask why the creditworthiness of the country has declined to the point where two of three Ratings Agencies have rated the country as ‘junk’. Ask why every Government-controlled business entity is in a state of collapse. Why cannot SAA make a profit, when the non-Government airlines do, why Eskom requires an ever-increasing tariff for the supply of the energy which, in the past, has been a major driver of economic growth, why the SABC requires additional funding every year, why SANRAL is rapidly approaching a fiscal cliff, even after a questionable accounting revaluations of its assets in order to maintain balance sheet solvency, could why PetroSA manage to deprive the country of its strategic fuel reserve? The root cause in every case is unqualified management. The compounding cause, corruption, is a direct result of the lack of moral honesty that is a prime element of a competent top manager, a quality that is built only by years of exposure to quality managers, absorbing their beliefs and morality.

“At the lower levels, Africans fare better, but still don’t match their EAP figures, accounting for 60.2% of skilled technical workers and 76.1% of semi-skilled workers,” the report continues. That again is no surprise. Although ‘Africans’ (correctly defined) occupy all but a tiny fraction of such positions, Blacks are severely disadvantaged in their capacity to occupy skilled or semi-skilled positions simply because the standard of education they receive is at an abysmally low level. The Department of Education systematically attempts to hide the real facts of this, by lowering the pass mark so that more ‘learners’ gain their piece of paper, but the truth is that an education at a level required to meet the minimum standards of most sophisticated employers is not available from the State schools. If there is any blame to be apportioned for this situation, it lies squarely at the feet of the ANC, which disrupted a proven skills-building system and introduced a system that had been proven elsewhere in the world to be defective. Once again, the ANC refuses to accept the advice of people who really know the truth, preferring to accept their ‘gut feel’ and the universally-disproven communist doctrine that they use as a master plan.

The figures issued, if correctly understood, are encouraging, in that they show that the Black citizens are working their way up the system, as any intelligent observer would expect. If we disabuse ourselves of the racist rhetoric spewed by the Government, it is clear that employers at all levels of the economy, would be delighted to find a qualified employee, whether at top management, skilled or semi-skilled, and would appoint such a person to an appropriate position. They would be pleased to provide the training, education and exposure that would maximize the value of such a person to the company. Every employer needs good people to sustain their growth into the future. Equally, every employer would be unconcerned that the best candidate for the job is Black or White, or any other race. Only the Government (and the few other Parties espousing similarly lunatic racial criteria, rather than promoting the economic growth that will create the situation where every person will have the job they want) would wish to push an unrealistic policy to the extent that the country’s already fragile economy will collapse.

The best thing that the ANC could do would be to expunge any reference to race from their lexicon, and that would be followed by getting out of the way of the hardworking people of all races who are working to make the country of Nelson Mandela succeed, for all its citizens.

The ANC does not Believe in the Constitution

Reports have it that the ANC NEC has called on Jacob Zuma to appeal the Court Order to disclose the reasons and documentation behind his firing of the Finance Minister.

There can be no clearer evidence than this, of the fact that the ANC considers itself to be above the Constitution. The have shown that when they failed to recall Zuma when he was found by the Public Protector, a body enshrined in the Constitution to protect the public against the predation routinely exercised by the Executive, to be guilty of unjust enrichment in the using of public funds to build his homestead. They enhanced that disregard of the Constitution by embarking on a vicious campaign to bring the Public Protector into disrepute. They failed the test of respect for the Constitution again, when they failed to reprimand Zuma for his breach of the Constitution and of his Oath of Office, and again when they meekly accepted his insult to the public by ‘apologising’ to the public for their confusion in failing to understand that he had accepted all along that he would repay the money. They have shown disrespect for the Constitution, the highest law in the land, by supporting him against motions to impeach him for his numerous acts of wrongdoing, for failing for several years to comply with a Court Order to hand over the spy tapes, for inducing the Minister of Police to lie to Parliament in order to protect Zuma from any requirement to pay back the money, for failing to respect a Court Order compelling him to arrest a renegade President, Omar al Bashir, who was subject to a Warrant of Arrest issued by the International Criminal Court for genocide (300 000 of his citizens were killed by his regime, yet Zuma did not consider him to be subject to the law, as he does not consider himself to be subject to the law), they have supported him in his lying about the status of the Waterkloof Air Force Base as a national security point when he permitted his friends, the Guptas, to use the Base to land several hundred guests for the Gupta wedding (permitting him to shunt the blame to fall guys who were then given plush sinecures as Ambassadors as a reward for taking the fall), and they have failed to reprimand or even criticize him for the multiple failings of his dozens of Ministers in their failings, such as Bathabile Dlamini, who disregarded an Order of the Constitutional Court and so precipitated a near crisis in the payment of social grants, the Minister of Communications in her reappointment of a man ordered by the Public Protector and the Court to be dismissed for lying about his qualifications, for his continued support of the Chairperson of SAA, who has brought a profitable business to its knees, at a cost of over R20 billion to the public, by an amazing lack of business capability and implementation of lunatic decisions aimed to enrich the ANC cadres, by his lack of action in correcting Eskom’s failings, which contributed to a decline in South Africa’s GDP b at least 2% p.a. by failing to run a previously world class utility in a responsible manner (even disregarding the ‘finder’s fees and share participations by the ANC in the contracts handed out by that body).

Now the ANC NEC has taken the ultimate step. It has encouraged Zuma to appeal an Order of Court compelling him to disclose the reasons for firing a Minister of Finance, in the aftermath of a blatant lie by Zuma to the people, claiming that he fired Gordhan on the basis of a security report on his conduct, which has now been shown for the childish excuse that it is. This Court Order is an affirmation of Zuma’s duty to account to Parliament for his actions as President, enshrined in the Constitution. It is also, in effect, a mandate to Parliament to hold the President to account for his actions. Parliament is the body in which the authority and obligation is vested to manage and control the actions of the Executive. By calling on the President to appeal an Order of Court compelling him to perform his function in the appointment and discharging of a senior Minister, the ANC NEC is effectively instructing the President, who is ultimately the President of the people, not only of the ANC, to ignore the Constitution, which is the ultimate law.

This does not come as a surprise. The ANC has demonstrated for many years that it considers itself to be the primary arbiter in the country of what is just and what is not, of what the Government does for and to the country, and, frequently, against the country, disregarding the prime intention of the Constitution, to ensure the best benefit for the citizens. The ANC and its associated ‘revolutionary movements’ saw nothing wrong with killing their own people to ensure that they toed the ANC line during the days before the peaceful handover of power to the majority and subsequent to that time. The political killings always reach a peak before the ‘election’ of candidates to feed at the trough of ANC-induced corruption. The ANC has tolerated a massacre of the farmers who, it assumes, represent a nest of opposition to their policies. The ANC has managed the Police Services, the Hawks, the National Prosecuting Authority, the State Owned Entities, the educational system, the Energy Authority and almost every aspect of the country’s institutions to a new low of performance and capability. It has succeeded in that aim also in replacing the Public Protector with a toothless stooge, after the high point in that body’s performance under the previous incumbent, and it is now working on the Courts and the justice system, the only remaining element of honesty and justice in the infrastructure of the country.

One can only hope that the impending implosion of this corrupt and inept Party will happen before it has the chance to bring about the final destruction of the Rainbow Nation that Nelson and so many of his fellows suffered to bring into existence.

A Cautionary Tale in Planning Race-Based Business Policies

An exam question was asked at the end of last year in a Logics course, with the caution that the question was compulsory. A failure to answer the question would result in failure of the candidate.

“A young Black man goes into a company’s office, clutching a Classified Ad from the ‘Jobs Vacant’ section of the local newspaper. “I want to apply for this job,” he says. “Let’s check your credentials before I tell you more about the job,” replies the man behind the desk. “I gained a B Com degree three years ago, but I haven’t been able to find work since I graduated, so I don’t have any experience.” The young man hands over letters from his teachers and lecturers stating their assessment of his capabilities and character. “That’s promising,” replies the man behind the desk. “We’re looking for a qualified person to do this job. It pays well, but we don’t do any work for the Government or the big companies that require that we comply with the BBEEE requirements. We would love to do some of that, but we don’t think it’s fair to our employees to subject them to arbitrary rules based on their race, so we limit our market to companies that think the way we do. We appoint people on merit, give them the training that they need to perform well, and then promote them according to their ability to do the work. We’re just an ordinary business that doesn’t apply any discriminatory rules based on race, gender or religion. All we’re looking for is someone who wants to build a long-term career on the basis of his or her ability.” The man behind the desk named a salary that was a little above the average for the qualifications required for the job. “Of course, in order to ensure that we keep the best people, we provide full training for the job as well as the next one up on the ladder, so that you can progress as quickly as your capabilities permit, and we’ll offer a participation in the shareholding of the company to people who have been with us for at least three years, and have proven their ability to perform in the jobs they hold by scoring above average on their annual performance appraisal. You can pay for your shareholding, if it’s offered, by deducting 1% of your salary for the purpose, until the agreed cost is paid. The likelihood is that the shares will earn you at least an additional fifty per cent of your salary once they’ve been paid. We don’t believe that anyone is entitled to demand a handout purely on the basis of their race, so your future will depend on you. Are you interested in the job?”

The applicant sat back in the chair and considered what he had been told. He needed the job, because the economy had been declining steadily since before he had commenced his studies, stifled by the economic policies imposed on the country by a Marxist-Leninist Government which appeared to have little understanding of proven economic theory, and he doubted that any of the many promises and job-creation initiatives by the Government would work any better in the future than they had done in the past twenty-three years.

Please respond to this situation as though you were the applicant by ticking one of the boxes below:

 

“Yes, please. I would like the job. I have always wanted to earn what I am worth, and I resent being treated as someone who needs special treatment. I believe that would degrade me personally as well as the knowledge I have worked so hard to obtain. You can count on me as a future shareholder.

 

No, thank you. I know that I do not have the skills, knowledge and capabilities of a White person, and I am not prepared to undertake any form of employment that does not recognise that my parents’ suffering under Apartheid entitles me to be paid for performing at a lower level than a White person with the same level of education. I believe that I am inferior, and I demand special rights to compensate for that.

Please amplify your choice in not more than 1 000 words below.”

*~*

No, this did not happen, but it is a situation that comes up many times each day in South Africa.

The Government places much emphasis on the creation of special entitlements for Black persons, and on the creation of ‘Black entrepreneurs’, apparently believing that a job created by a Black entrepreneur has more value than that created by a White. It does not seem to understand that an employer seeking a new employee will take whichever candidate meets its requirements in terms of education, experience and skills, which implies that the major responsibility of the Government is the provision of an education and training that will ensure that all of the people in the system gain the qualifications to hold they jobs they aspire to. In none of the companies assisted by the Management Consultancy of which I am part was race ever a criterion, except where the employer was forced to accommodate a lower level of capability in order to meet the requirements of the Government’s BBEEE laws, and, in most cases, that resulted in a form of restructuring to ensure that the candidate it was forced to take was supported by other employees with more skill and experience. The Government fails to understand, or perhaps does not wish to understand, that the world of business is focused on profit and effectiveness in a world where both of these are becoming more critical each month. They want to employ people who will enable them to achieve these goals, and do not even notice the race of the person doing the job.

As in so many aspects of Government’s actions, it appears that the insistence on employers choosing the correct racial mix is doing much more to drag down the ability of companies to do the work needed for the economy, than it is doing to advance the interests of the Black population. The declining performance of the economy is stark evidence of that. In the interests of advancing its prospects to be re-elected, the ANC is creating racial division and strife, totally ignoring the fact that the Government is the Government of ALL the people of the country. One must ask why it is good to destroy the ability of White-owned and –managed businesses to succeed and to continue to offer jobs to all races, while providing huge incentives to Black-owned (and probably White-managed) businesses to replace them, (probably at a lower level of effectiveness for many years) introducing a large cost burden on Government and continuity-risk burden on employees (in acknowledgement of the universal fact that the highest fatality rate for business is experienced in the first three to seven year period).

How would you respond to the questions above, if you were in the position of the young Black job-seeker? Do you qualify as a racist, or as an efficient player in the economy?

World Economic Forum – Does it Mean Anything?

The World Economic Forum 2017 starts in Durban today, boasting a bevy of ‘economic leaders’. This forum is designed to permit world leaders and thinkers to talk about the problems the world’s economies face, to and find ways to solve them, and to talk about crucial inclusive and sustainable progress, particularly for Africa.

In a Moneyweb article today, presenting a radio discussion on the meeting, it was reported that it is expected that notables attending the meeting will be the Prime Minister of Namibia, the president of Senegal, the president of Uganda, and the King of Swaziland as well as his prime minister and possibly the President of Zimbabwe. The meeting will also be attended by the President of South Africa, who will make the opening address.

And therein lies the problem.

The people attending, with the possible exception of the Prime Minister of Namibia, are all leaders of nothing nations, nations brought close to poverty by the policies and actions of their leaders. One could hardly be expected to show respect for the King of Swaziland in his role as an economic leader. He demanded a 25% finder’s fee for a loan of R2,4 billion granted to his country by South Africa, in the form of a bail-out. Readers will remember that the South African Minister of Finance explained to infuriated South Africans that the loan would not cost South Africa anything, as it was borrowed and lent on. That sort of bush accounting goes a long way to explaining why South African bonds now enjoy a junk status! Uganda is enjoying a boom at the moment, probably because the huge sums flowing from the location there of the African Union are largely provided by Europe, a continent which is roundly condemned by most African countries, except when they make their begging bowl presentations. Zimbabwe presently holds the lowest ranking in the world, apart from North Korea (a country highly respected by Namibia as an example of economic and democratic excellence), in the fields of corruption, repression of democracy, lack of transparency in government, honest elections (with the notable exception of South Africa, whose Electoral Commission, in its capacity as an expert observer, declared the most recent election to be free and fair, the only observer believing that), incredibly poor economic policies and practically any other metric related to good governance. And, of course, the geriatric President, Robert Mugabe, will spout his usual diatribe about America and Britain as the examples of everything that is wrong. That will delight Jacob Zuma, the equally crooked President of South Africa, who enjoys the distinction of having brought down the most powerful economy in Africa while building his personal wealth. Zuma dotes on Mugabe, seeing in him the example of what he is striving to be, a dictator of a banana republic.

It is worrisome that a meeting of this nature should be lauded as worthwhile, even valuable to the development of the African and world economies. That shows just how far the world economy, with the exception of the Western nations, which are viewed as having value to Africa only as donors and supporters, has slipped.

In times such as these, the world has need of great men and women as leaders. Few are to be seen, and the nations in a large part of the world seem to be turning to people whose sole interest seems to be personal wealth and aggrandizement, rather than the pursuit of sound economic management. Even the United States has slipped down the ladder of leadership, with the new President Trump being elected on the basis of hatred, arrogance and grand-sounding promises. There are few leaders in the world who can lay claim to the heritage of careful thought, considered action and application of democratic principles that was handed down by their predecessors only a few decades ago.

Why do the people accept this? Can it be that the citizens of the world have lost so much intelligence and perception that they cannot understand what is being done to them by the people they have chosen to lead them? What has happened to the grand experiment of democracy?

It seems that the succession of failed leaders in so many countries has created the view that democracy is not worth fighting for, that empty slogans appealing to uninformed and unthinking populaces have greater value than important principles, that the amassing of personal wealth, at the cost of the world economy and environment is more important than providing the basis of a good life for our children and grandchildren. The continued abdication of their rights of control by the citizens of the world to ‘leaders of no apparent worth will surely result in a growth of a new form of dictatorship by those hungry for wealth and power. Perhaps the citizens of the world will deserve what they will ultimately get.

The World Economic Forum promises to be no more than another talk shop, at which empty slogans will be mouthed for the purpose of gaining newspaper headlines glorifying the participants, to be reported in their home countries in glowing terms by sycophantic reporters, while the business leaders build their circles of conspirators at the elevated levels of government, with the prime objective of each feathering their personal nests, while they lay the foundations for the next world war.

Is this what we, the citizens of the world, want?

Advice for the ANC and their replacement in Government

A broadcast item on the SABC led to an understanding of why South Africa is in the crisis it now is. The item concerned the fact that 35 000 domestic workers lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2017, coincidentally the period in which the Government announced that a National Minimum Wage of R20 per hour will be applied. The reason is simple. The people running the country do not have even a basic understanding of the rules of economics. To clarify: these rules are universal, applying everywhere, regardless of nationality, race or ideology. Although they were identified, codified and clarified by ‘dead White men’, they were never imposed by those White men, or by the ‘colonial regimes’ that are so hated by the unthinking Black African regimes. They are imposed by Nature, and disregard of them is punished by Nature.

In order to avoid the necessity of sending a bunch of ‘leaders’ to university to gain the wisdom and understanding they need to run the country (so probably depriving them of the fat pickings of a government position), here are some basic rules to observe when formulating policies. 

1. Any job is better than no job. There are exceptions of course, but these are taken care of by acceptable legislation on worker health and safety. The simple fact is that a starving man or woman would much rather work for a small wage than have no wage at all. The cut-off point is reached where the wage offered is so low that the worker sees no economic benefit in undertaking that employment, when he or she will either simply stay at home or take steps to upgrade his or her utility to the employer by doing more work for the same wage or by up-skilling to undertake more valuable work.
2. A work contract is a voluntary arrangement between the worker and the employer. If the worker is not satisfied with the wage he or she is paid, and the employer is unwilling or unable to pay more, the worker is free to terminate the arrangement and seek work elsewhere.
3. The inability of the employer to terminate the voluntary arrangement without extensive and expensive repercussions is a strong incentive to the employer to find a way to have the work done without the need for labour, or, in most cases, with a need for less labour, which is generally more highly qualified. (If you doubt that this rule is valid, look at the mine labour statistics.)
4. The inability of the worker to find better-paying work elsewhere is a direct result of two major factors:
1. There are too many workers for the available jobs, which means that employers have the ability to employ another worker at a cost that he is willing or able to pay. This, in turn, is a direct result of the implications of rule 3. Economic activity is the main determinant of the number of jobs available: too little economic activity results in too few jobs, high competition for the few jobs available and consequently low wages being offered.
2. There are too many workers offering the same or a higher level of qualification than the particular employee. This tends to be the result of a high birthrate, coupled with improved medical care resulting in a population growth higher than the rate of economic growth,
5. In turn, the high cost of labour resulting from interference with the market mechanisms, by governments or by Trade Unions, is a disincentive to a potential employer who would otherwise establish the industry or business that would generate the jobs to employ the present or potential unemployed. To put it simply, an investor does a calculation based on the expected size of the market, which generates the income necessary to cover the costs, and the expected costs, which consist of raw materials and components, labour (quantity (at the required level of qualification) and cost per labour unit, other costs (such as fees, levies, compulsory costs) and other cost inputs (such as electricity, transport) compulsory transfer of profit share (such as BEE share participation, income and other taxes), and then compares the net return to him or her with the expected risks of undertaking that activity. If the calculation produces a less-than-acceptable result, the investor finds an alternative use for the available capital, or simply accepts no return rather than running the risk of a loss. There is no element of racism, political favour or humanitarianism in this calculation. It is the responsibility of the person making the investment (to himself or to the people he represents) to earn an adequate profit on the money invested. Where a profit is not expected, as is the case in the agreement between an individual and a domestic worker, the calculation is even easier. The question is asked: how much can I (or am I willing to) afford paying for the services of a domestic worker? If the wage (including all ancillary costs, such as food, accommodation, transport, UIF contribution, pension contributions, costs of termination (including possible litigation or conciliation)) is too high, the employment arrangement will not be entered into, or, if it already exists, will be terminated. The result will be that the potential takers for such employment will be left with fewer offers of employment, and will either remain employed, accept employment at a lower than desired wage, or find a means to upscale the employment offering by improving skills or reducing hours worked. This calculation is done at many times, but, most often, when the income of the employer is reduced or under threat of reduction, as it now is, with the result that 35 000 domestic workers have lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2017.

The final rule is that no-one has any reason to question the results of government and union activism: any action that increases costs of employment will result in either a shift from less productive forms of employment, either to more productive forms (generally with a reduced number of employed) or a lower level of economic activity. There are no exceptions. The rules apply at all times, although their workings may be disguised (and usually are by employers who do not wish to attract the ire of government, the unions or the public by making an unambiguous announcement) or delayed (it often takes a long time for the realisation that a particular element of activity is no longer profitable, to translate into a replacement or termination of that activity). However, the come-uppences will take place. What will not happen, as history so painfully shows, is that the workers will understand why they have lost their jobs, that governments will accept their part in the blame, or that unions will moderate their demands.

Any government that wishes to increase employment, and so economic activity, and so wage levels, and so tax revenue, must understand rules 1 through 5. It is no great mental challenge to understand that these rules are immutable, and that no amount of legislation or strikes can revoke these rules. The hardest part of Government’s task is to apply them.