On Friday I asked a friend if she had watched President Ramaphosa’s SONA (State Of The Nation) address on Thursday. She said she began watching, but after four minutes switched over to Sewende Laan. I sympathise. Sewende Laan has an intelligent script, interesting characters, a good story line and, surprise!, none of which apply to SONA. But herein lies the significance of SONA. Its boring and predictable delivery explains the nation’s doom under the ANC. Whatever Cyril Ramaphosa’s (CR) own economic ideas maybe, if he has any, he is trapped in the ANC prison. So are we.
Before SONA, the distinguished economist, Dr Iraj Abedian, was asked how CR should address the dire state of the economy. Abedian immediately identified our greatest weakness: the shocking state of our state education, which threatens to keep us from ever developing into a modern, industrialised, high-value economy, like those in Europe, North America and Asia. What did CR say about education? Nothing but a waffly line about the need to “improve educational outcomes”. No suggestion how to do this. The ANC seems to have resigned itself to the fact that South Africa will remain a failed African economy, relying on the export of raw materials and agricultural goods.
Everybody knows how to improve our education. Allow all South African children to go to the excellent schools to which the ANC leaders send their own children. These are schools with dedicated teachers appointed on merit and performance, not on skin colour or political connections. They are controlled by responsible educational authorities rather than the dreadful SADTU teaching union. Such a solution is impossible for the ANC. It relies on the political support of SADTU and feels, like most other African ruling parties, that low-class black children should have black teachers but high-class black children should have white teachers. This racial and class ideology lies deep within the psyche of African liberation movements.
Probably the finest moment of SONA was when CR admitted that “there will be an electricity supply shortfall of between 4,000 and 6,000 MW over the next five years”. Thank heavens for honesty! For the last twenty years, we’ve heard one ANC leader after another, one Eskom spokesman after another, say that Eskom’s problems would be over by – (fill in some absurdly optimistic date). Now CR admits to blackouts for at least five years. Electricity demand has been severely depressed by economic decline and Covid-19, but still Eskom cannot meet the demand. It stands no chance of meeting it with a growing economy.
CR said it will become easier for private suppliers to enter the grid locally and nationally, and for “embedded generators” (generators in paper mills, sugar mills and Sasol) to sell into the grid. Good. He also said they would be procuring more wind and solar energy, and an “additional 11,800 MW of power” according to the Integrated Resource Plan 2019. Bad. Solar and wind, here as everywhere else on Earth, have proved an expensive disaster for grid electricity (although good off-grid). IRP2019, a legal document for electricity policy until 2030, is like a suicide note for our electricity supply. It is a ruinous green fantasy. By far our best electricity option in the medium term is nuclear. Not one mention of nuclear from CR. He has been captured by the rich greens as well as the ANC.
There was a lovely anomaly deep into SONA when CR said: “In 2020, we became the world’s second-largest exporter of citrus, with strong export growth in wine, maize, nuts, deciduous fruit and sugar cane.” Well, well! We are told that climate change is going to ruin the weather and agriculture. But wonderful rains have brought us bumper harvests. (The reason seems to be La Niña, a natural climate oscillation.) And what’s this about good exports of wine? I thought the ANC had decreed that alcohol was evil; I thought the Reichsfuhrer of the Police, Bheki Cele, had banned alcohol. His ban caused devastating losses to the wine farmers (and restaurants and tourism). But here is CR telling us we must celebrate the wine farmers. What’s going on? Does this point to some escape from the ANC prison, or will the ANC copy its hero Robert Mugabe, and expropriate the wine farms without compensation?
Finally, the central paradox of ANC ideology was when CR uttered the catchy phrase: “We are making it easier for business to do business.” They are doing nothing of the kind. They are making it more and more difficult to do business in South Africa, with BEE, affirmative action, minimum wages, restrictive labour laws, bargaining councils among the rich to shut the poor out of the economy, and unpredictable policies that can change on a minister’s whim the moment an investor has committed money to the country. The ANC says it welcomes investment; actually it thinks all foreign investors are racist, imperialist exploiters. It says it welcomes business; actually it hates capitalism and its final goal is to nationalise everything.
(Photo:ESA ALEXANDER, TimesLIVE)
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