Don’t Mention the Weather
I sometimes wonder about the collective intelligence of our Lords and Mistresses in Parliament. The latest brain-fart is imprisonment for predicting the weather. The latest draft of amendments to the South African Weather Service Act of 2001 provides for fines of up to R10Million and/or 10 years in prison for stating anything that could be considered a “severe weather warning”.
However, if the South African Weather Service issues a “severe weather warning” then that is ok, so the implication must be that the Government is protecting it’s revenue base. The problem there is that weather predictions by the SAWS are about as accurate as my Uncle Jimmy’s of the US national debt, and carry about as much value.
My view is that it is a back-handed swipe at the English, and their propensity for talking about the weather on every possible occasion. Stop Pommies saying, “Fine day, but looks like rain later” and the buggers will will have no conversation at all.
Seriously, quite apart from anything else, this seems to be the latest in a long line of legislation that is unenforceable in practice. Are we therefore to see the emergence of a sinister group of bat-eared individuals who lurk in dark corners, listening for careless talk of impending storm or tempest? Are our phones and emails to be scanned for coded messages warning that the Harvest Festival on Saturday will need to be indoors because of a potential rainstorm?
Are M'Learned friends to make hay while they endlessly discourse on the legal definition of a "severe weather warning" in courts across the land?
Laugh if you like, but we pay for these clowns to come up with this drivel.
Is Rudeness on the Increase?
I have been pestered for the last while by a seeming cloth-eared idiot with only a faint grasp of the basics of customer relations. This mental giant does not realise just how close he is to losing a long-term customer. It goes like this.
My cell phone rings and shows a hidden/private number. I answer, a voice says "Please hold for an important call". The arrogant cheek of it. I don't know who it is that is calling, but they, whoever they are, expect me to stop whatever it is that I am doing and hang on until they get around to actually speaking to me.
I hang up, but they then phone back about 5 minutes later. Same story. This has now been going on for over a week now.
Has anyone in that brain disadvantaged organisation stopped to think just what impression this behaviour is giving to the poor schmuck who answers the phone. “We need to speak to you, but someone else is more important. Hang on a minute”. If a shop assistant did that to you would you continue to use that shop. Probably not, or at the very least be less inclined to make it your first stop.
Especially with the new CPA and the increased ability of customers to shove off without penalty, do you really want to give the impression that you don’t really give a tinker’s curse for the poor benighted fools who give you business.
Rude, arrogant, ignorant fools.
Another punch in the wallet
The Gautrain people must think that we have boulders between our ears. Having achieved their first lot of jollies with their completely over-the-top rule book and the wanabee cops implementing it, they are now sticking it to us with their fare structure.
Simply put, it’s just under R50 to travel between central Pretoria and central Johannesburg. However, if you want to go to the airport, which is on the Pretoria side of Johannesburg, it’s R125. And looking at the map on their website, it looks like travellers will need to go to Sandton and change trains to travel back to ORT.
How, other than pure and simple greed can this be justified.
Politicians have wittered on endlessly about a major benefit of the Gautrain being the reduction in road traffic. Quite apart from the simple question of Mr and Mrs Tourist asking “What Now?” while standing in Sandton wanting to get to Roodepoort, I cannot see any benefit to me to change to the Gautrain when I go to Oliver Tambo Airport.
I had looked at being able to walk out of my office in Pretoria, over the road to the Hatfield Gautrain station, and thence to ORT. On Monday the reverse. At a reasonable fare, that would save me a shed-load of money in travel cost and parking fees. Never mind the mental strain of the R21.
Driving to ORT means R150 to park, plus petrol, wear and tear - probably at least R200-R250. At R250 for a Gautrain round trip the saving is marginal, so I’ll drive.
Take the underground to Heathrow or Metro to CDG, and it's a standard fare, not out of line with fares to the adjacent stations.
This is a rip-off, pure and simple.
Our Smug, Arrogant Government
The ruling party, the ANC, exhibit arrogance, high-handedness, conceit and pomposity of the highest order.
What burns my boat is the smug contempt they have for us lesser mortals.
Parliament is by and large a rubber stamp for policies crafted in Luthuli House. The normal conventions and courtesies of Parliamentary procedure are ignored when inconvenient. The committee structure designed to provide oversight and accountability of Ministers is used to obfuscate and delay enquiries or in the case of Defence, simply dismissed as irrelevant.
There seems to be a general acceptance of abrogation of responsibility for mundane and humdrum business, i.e. the proper business of Governance.
My particular concern is the outsourcing of the creation and enacting of law. Parastatal organisations are now allowed to create and enact rules outside any form of judicial oversight, and without those rules being subject to public review and to scrutiny and approval by Parliament. Those rules then assume the force of law, and are enforced without fear, favour or common sense by the wanabee cops hired by private security organisations.
A prime example is the Bombela/Gautrain rule book, much discussed following the farce around "Trousers Off" day and the arrest of the revellers. I now find that non-payment of toll fees within 30 days is to become a AARTO offence with the issue of demerit points. SANRAL have in effect decided to criminalise a civil debt.
Why are matters that properly lie within the remit of Government being outsourced to parastatals? Are they just too tedious to discuss? Or are they beneath the great and not-so-good?
The real reason is probably that they interfere with the time used to make money.
Officially Gatvol
I am now officially gatvol.
The headlines in yesterdays blatt announced that the various Mrs Zuma are each to receive a luxury imported car for their personal use, despite their not having driving licences. The cost is estimated at R6000 per day per car, i.e. R24000 per day to provide individual transport for each of his four wives. Add in the current fiancé, and the cost rises to R30000 per day. This cost does not include the provision of a driver and security, costs which are again borne by the State, i.e. the taxpayer.
I, like most people have a concept of reasonableness when it comes to paying tax. I have no problem with donating towards what used to be described as the common weal. However, I do draw the line at subsidising wasteful extravagances of this type.
I am taking my cue from the Minister of Transport who has been heard to utter the mantra that taxes must be related to usage.
As a result, I will continue to pay VAT and other indirect taxes related to my consumption of goods and services. However, I will no longer pay direct taxation since in my view it is not being used to provide the basic services that all SA citizens so desperately need. Instead it is being used to support undeserving individuals in a lifestyle that most can only dream of. This car debacle is the last straw.
Parastatals – A Law Unto Themselves
I've been thinking about the role of the parastatals, prompted by the introduction of open road tolling in Gauteng.
I would like to consider the constitutionality of devolving authority to parastatals and private companies in the current manner.
To my mind, it is an essential component of law making that the process is open to public scrutiny and input. That is generally the case in the Parliamentary process, with the possible exception of the so-called "Enabling Acts".
However, Government seems to increasingly be devolving operational control of major areas of governance to either parastatals or private organisations. They in turn develop rules, guidelines, call them what you will for the operation of their remit. In most cases these rules then assume the force of law and are enforced by private security organisations.
The development of these rules does not include public participation and there appears to be no oversight of their operational enforcement by Government or a properly constituted legal body.
We have seen the ludicrous rule book implemented by Bombela relating to the operation of the Gautrain. That those rules are then interpreted and implemented by the sort of police wanabee uniformed security wonk you find in shopping malls is really not acceptable.
I find it extremely disturbing that parastatals can write their own laws and expect everyone to obey them. I find it even more disturbing that they can call on the SAP to help them enforce them. I find it yet more disturbing that there is no constituted legal body overseeing their operations and the manner in which they implement their rule book.
There are other significant questions about the role of parastatals, particularly whether they should be profit driven, or break-even with any surplus ploughed back as investment in their area of work.
To address the Gauteng open road tolling system specifically in this context.
It is a given that roads must be paid for. How that payment is made, through taxation, through tolling, or through a combination of both mechanisms is the issue under question.
I have both structural and operational objections to the tolling system as currently being implemented.
My first objection relates to the constitutionality of a non-Governmental body being able to criminalise individual behaviour and use State resources for enforcement. SANRAL can ask the SAP to pull you over. You can then be arrested, charged and detained for non-payment of tolls. Non-payment of tolls seems therefore to be classed more severely than non-payment of the annual vehicle licensing fee, an omission which usually attracts a ticket.
My second objection is that there was no public participation in the process, neither of the assessment of the need itself, the payment method, nor of the level of payment. The entire process seems to have been carried out (to quote Harold Wilson) in private sessions in a series of smoke filled rooms.
The operator is an Austrian company, who on their website are boasting of the "handsome profits" to be made from their management of the tolling process.
I am quite sure that if public participation had taken place that there would have been a much wider and more robust discussion about the need itself, the level of charges to be paid by the user, and the need for the profits, if any, to remain in South Africa for reinvestment elsewhere in the road network.
On operational issues, one common thread that runs through all discussions is that payment must be related to usage. SANRAL say that is what open road tolling provides. This is a straw man's argument. It is already the case. The more you drive, the more fuel you use, the more tax and levies you pay.
SANRAL also say that the tolls will provide much improved police and emergency services. Again, we already pay for the SAP, Metro police and public health services through direct taxation, and in most cases again through private security companies and medical aid schemes.
A second common thread is that we already pay for the transport infrastructure through direct and indirect taxation, particularly fuel tax and levies. So why therefore, the additional payment of road tolls?
I reiterate as a final thought - why should public infrastructure of this type be run at a profit. Surely SANRAL should operate as a non-profit organisation, and any "profits" (usually called a surplus in Government speak) ploughed back into maintenance and extension of the road infrastructure.
1Time Update
I must have had a rush of blood to the brain, or been otherwise distracted and booked a flight on 1Time again.
I have now come to the conclusion that they do not operate a timetable or a schedule, just a guideline as to when they might be able to get one of their ageing rustbuckets off the ground.
Friday – scheduled to leave at 6.15pm, rescheduled for 6.50, and finally left at 7.15. Monday, scheduled to leave at 06.45, finally left at 07.20. No reason was supplied for Friday’s delay, but the delay on Monday was, and wait for this, the crew. Because the plane had arrived late on Sunday night, the crew would arrive late on Monday morning.
Is there some CAA regulation that stipulates the amount of beauty sleep the crew must have? Please enlighten me.
As an airline for the business traveller, they are as much use as a chocolate teapot.
If I ever try to book a 1Time flight again, please shoot me.
1Time Airlines –That’s how often you fly with them.
If there were Olympic medals for incompetence then 1Time Airlines would be proud holders of the Gold.
We as a nation spend squillions of rand and what seems like aeons crafting complex and all-inclusive nation building programmes and plans. We are then surprised when they don’t work, blaming tenderpreneurs, racism, agents, whatever.
The real reason is that as businesses, we aren’t capable of doing the simple things correctly and assessing and addressing the consequences of failure. Like having planes that actually leave when they should, from where they should.
I sometimes wonder if the nation’s business planners and managers are able to find their own buttocks in the dark, even using both hands. Or give a damn when they can’t.
Consider the following sequence of events.
9pm Sunday - on-line check-in for 6.45 am 1T200 Monday flight to Johannesburg. All is in order.
4.30am, get up, usual stuff, then proceed to King Shaka Airport
5.30 am King Shaka - collect boarding pass. Check it, shows boarding time as 7.20. Apparently the flight has now been delayed to 7.50am for 'technical' reasons. An enquiry at the 1Time desk indicates the flight will actually leave at 08.20. Apparently SMSs were sent to all affected passengers. I'm still waiting for mine.
Discussing the matter with other suffering potential one-time passengers shows the 1Time Durban to Cape Town flights are similarly affected. No food/drink vouchers, no transfers to other airlines. Only apologies.
My business day is completely stuffed before it starts. Not quite as bad as the guy behind me who was on the way to Cape Town to deliver his company’s response to a R40Million tender. The earliest 1Time could get him there is after the tender closes. “Sorry for any inconvenience” doesn’t quite seem to cut it.
Just because you are a budget airline is no excuse for assuming that your passengers are students or holidaymakers to whom an hour or three here or there is not a pressing matter. The two gentlemen with connecting flights at Johannesburg would certainly agree.
Small businesses are under immense financial pressure and are resorting to low-cost carriers like 1Time to manage their business costs. Perhaps the benefits are illusory and SMME travellers should take it on the chin and pay the additional costs of the full-fare carriers.
For me, 1Time are well named. That is how often I will fly with them.
Super Roadblocks
Super Roadblocks are our gift from Government over the Holiday Season. As usual drivers and their vehicles are liable to be checked, but this time passengers are to be checked as well. The roadblocks will be manned by the SAP and by other State Agencies looking for amongst other things tax evaders, illegal immigrants and dangerous goods. Is this a good thing in that a much broader spectrum of criminals will be arrested, or is it a flagrant abuse of State Power ?
General Bheki “Rambo” Cele told parliament last Friday that roadblocks are to be manned by combined teams from up to ten Government Agencies including the SAP, SARS, Home Affairs and Nature Conservation. The programme is unofficially set to start in Gauteng early next month and nationwide from December 4th.
He has warned that tax dodgers, illegal immigrants and carriers of dangerous and illegal goods should brace themselves for a hard time. Another new concept he has introduced is that travellers without an acceptable ID will be fingerprinted, and the fingerprints used to check for any outstanding issues. I thought he might mellow after his honeymoon. No such luck.
We normally expect an increase in roadblocks at holiday times, but this announcement takes the concept a whole yard further – longer traffic queues, lots more vehicles, lots more flashing lights, uniformed SAP officers strutting their stuff, pulling you over and interrogating you and your passengers, perhaps demanding fingerprints, certainly demanding ID books or proof of ID. Several groups of people dressed in civilian clothes in the background tapping your ID number into laptops. People searching your vehicle and rummaging around in your possessions. Scary. Especially at night. In the rain. If you are a woman alone.
Road blocks are pretty inefficient in catching criminals. They are highly efficient at catching drivers with outstanding fines. That however, is not law enforcement or crime prevention, that’s revenue generation. Roadblocks on steroids will be no different, just longer queues and more aggravation.
So why the upgrade of SAP vehicle focussed roadblocks to fully-fledged State fishing expeditions ?
To be kind, it smacks of the usual government kneejerk reaction that something must be done, someone having what they think is a brilliant idea to do it, and some suit behind a desk not thinking through all the implications of implementing the brilliant idea.
Not to be kind, it is a PR exercise, pure and simple. We will see Rambo grand-standing sometime in January or February showing what a fine fellow he is by catching so many criminals in December.
To the cynical mind, it has the unholy stench of an impending totalitarian police state. Part of the insidious progression this Government is making towards total dictatorship and removal of basic human rights. Look at the Media Tribunal Bill and the Protection of Information Act as part of the same package.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for genuine criminals being caught. But I don’t think this is the way to do it.
There are a few practical problems. Several of the activities are probably unconstitutional and will be challenged in court.
Dennis Jackson of the Justice Project of South Africa says that there must be “reasonable suspicion” before any action can be taken against motorists or passengers at the roadside. Durban attorney Saber Jazbhay said the roadblocks would not be “constitutionally sound”.
First, there is no easy definition of what constitutes reasonable suspicion. For example, are Home Affairs officials allowed to assess whether someone is potentially an illegal immigrant by the colour of their skin. There will be many claims against the State for unlawful arrest and detention if that is the level of criteria used as a definition of “reasonable suspicion”.
Assuming that reasonable suspicion exists, what are the lawful grounds for arrest at a roadblock by the various Agencies. Are they in fact allowed to arrest you, or do they have to ask the SAP to do so ? Recently the Government inserted Sections 4A and 4B into the Customs and Excise Act conferring the power of arrest on Customs Officials and authorising the carrying of firearms for the purposes of enforcing the Customs Act. In other words, a Customs Officer can be deemed to be a Peace Officer as defined in the Criminal Procedures Act. Customs are part of SARS, so take that sports lovers. You can be arrested at gunpoint at a road block for not submitting a tax return.
It will be a brave one who insists that only the original copy of a court issued arrest warrant is sufficient.
Western Cape Transport MEC Robin Carlisle attempted to justify the involvement of highly specialised groups like SARS by stating that they had emergency vehicles and officials with powers of arrest. They therefore would help in targeting people who caused road fatalities.
It’s the first time I hear that a major cause of our road carnage is not having a tax clearance form. Smooth tyres perhaps, drunk certainly, but irregularities in your tax affairs. Give me a break.
I suspect the biggest problem, and there this is where M’Learned friends will make hay while the sun shines is that most Government databases are not accurate and not up to date, and probably not set up with the immediate updates necessary for use in this environment. As a result incorrect information will make the innocent look guilty and the guilty look innocent. Court cases will follow as surely as lawyers will hang around roadblocks.
The second big problem is that with a few notable exceptions, the people involved do not have the qualifications or intention to act in a professional and impartial manner. It’ll be holiday bonus time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess the option a father will take when presented with the two options of seeing his family spend Christmas in jail or coughing up some folding money. He may even suggest the spot fine option. Other officials, flushed with their temporary power will go on a cosmic ego trip and really make some people’s holiday.
In summary, this looks once again like applying First World principles and policies with African precision.
Whatever the real answer is, applying State Resources in this ham-fisted and heavy-handed way tramples on all the rights that those dear folk fought so long and so hard for.
SA – Big Question Time
South Africa is at a tipping point. We have a Government that seems to have lost the plot. It is fighting paper tigers in the media while we head towards an economic Armageddon with increasing rapidity. The rapacious plundering of the economy by the not-so-good in Government, their relatives and friends looks more and more like rats deserting the sinking ship.
But the real story is even worse. We do not have the skills to turn our economy around, we do not have an education system that can provide us with the skilled people in sufficient time, and even if we did, we do not have the warm bodies of a suitable age to receive that education.
Point 1 – a people crisis:
- A population of 52 Million or so, plus an estimated 10 Million in legal and illegal immigrants.
- The official unemployment rate is given as around 25%. Unisa calculate 45%, and the advertising industry use a figure closer to 65%.
- About 20 Million people are dependent on welfare grants
- 5.7 Million people are HIV positive, dying at a rate of about 1000 per day, mostly in the economically active 15-45 age group.
- Average life expectancy has tumbled from 60 in 1990 to 40 today
- Disengaged, functionally illiterate, innumerate and uneducable individuals in youth and middle age
- By 2015, 32% of all children will be AIDS orphans
- There are about 5.3Million registered taxpayers, of whom 1 Million or so are Government employees, thereby just moving tax income from one pocket to another. Of the remaining 4Million or so, about 1 Million provide 75% of the tax income. According to Mike Schussler and others, an unsustainable economy.
Point 2 – an environment crisis
- Dysfunctional electricity reticulation and generation
- An unmaintained and disintegrating physical infrastructure. Most roadway bridges have not been maintained for the last 15 years
- Less than 5% of the sewage plants in the country (around 30 out of 930) operate correctly
- Just over 10% of all municipalities (30 out of 280) can provide clean and safe drinking water
- Water with the acidity of lemon juice will flood central Johannesburg and poison the Gauteng environment in about 18 months time, the legacy of gold mining.
Point 3 – a governance crisis
- A wholesale loss of skills and expertise from 1994 onwards as experienced and competent civil servants were replaced with deployed ANC cadres. A simple replacement, no handover or skills transfer
- The concept of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” has gone out of the window.
- Relocation (theft) of state funds by tampering with contracts, tenders and pay-offs has become an acceptable secondary income stream
- The result - large areas of society are governed by thieves and incompetents
What is suddenly different ?
While the gradual erosion of government could be hidden a facade could be maintained, but as soon as the electricity crisis hit, followed by the admission of a forthcoming sewage and water crisis, the inadequacies in governance were literally brought home to citizens. Questions were then asked about missing RDP homes, RDP homes that fell apart after a very short period, and the general appalling level of service delivery. The Emperor then had no clothes.
The outcome of the realisation that governance is failing is already being seen. Self-help is now the order of the day as citizens bypass formal government structures that are unable to deliver. Communities repair roads themselves, pay for additional teaching and medical staff in their schools and hospitals. Black communities are demonstrating and physically attacking local and national government buildings. Voices are arising in all communities that they are paying at least twice for everything, once as tax, and a second time to provide paid-for services that are not delivered. At some point very soon, they will stop doing paying the first time and let the Revenue know in no uncertain terms.
We are now beginning to see Government react. It is trying to close down avenues of information, by preventing the media reporting on it, by attempting to close off areas of the Internet, and by adopting the philosophy that everything is secret unless deemed otherwise. Local Government is becoming increasingly dysfunctional and irrelevant.
Where do we go from here ? Towards an increasingly autocratic society as we slip into the “African” model of a polarised economy of an ultra rich minority and a subsistence level majority. Unless something changes that is what will happen.
It all depends on how we manage our Human Capital as individuals and as small businesses. Without adequate intellectual and human capital in ourselves, our businesses and our customers, we will not be able to regenerate our society. The next year is critical.
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