Thomas Johnson - The Blog

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said pay increases for government workers contributed to the finance crisis. The SACP said workers mustn't be blamed though. (Elsewhere, they accused Western "imperialism" for petrol price increases, absolving their sponsor, Russia, as an oil and gas producer that tried to blackmail Europe.) He was was worried how about paying for the emergency Social Relief Distress aka Covid-19 Grant of R350. Government workers are the new elite. Under Zuma their numbers increased half a million to 2.7 million. They're a third of all employed people. For 30 years they've received above-inflation increases. They, including cabinet and executive, earn 20-30% more than private sector workers for similar posts.  The ANC doesn't care, though. They say people - their people, cadres - must eat. And they are ensured voter support from the extraordinarily large numbers of grant recipients. The public sector is overpaid, overstaffed, underemployed an...

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) appears to have taken sides in the conflict in Gaza. Alexander Sinton High School in Athlone has three Palestinian flags above its name boards in two locations: one at the entrance and the other at a cross street. At least one flag predates the current situation in Gaza. Flying foreign flags on the premises of a state facility is irregular in itself. It appears the Western Cape Government is involving itself in foreign affairs policy and the affairs of another country. Flying the flag represents support for Palestine and Gaza, and by extension, Gaza's government Hamas. The situation in Palestine and particularly Gaza is tragic enough without interference from people far away who have no stake in the conflict and little knowledge of its history. One is entitled to an opinion but this time one should be careful about taking a public stand, like futile and facile flag-waving support of other people's wars. People who get involved in oth...

 South Africa's failing state under the ANC is no happenstance. It started soon after the 1994 elections.  Before the elections, colleagues asked what I thought of the ANC and who I'd vote for. I replied that while I did not trust the ANC and would not vote for them, I'd give them the benefit of doubt with Mandela as presumed president and as part of a government of national unity. I wasn't sitting on the fence, though. I did not trust them because of their political and moral turpitude inside and outside the country up to the elections. However, like most South Africans I was bouyed by optimism that against all odds we'd managed a miracle.  A minority were not sanguine, though, like a colleague who predicted conflict and decay and was emigrating with his family to England. I thought he'd given up before the challenges to build a democratic and prosperous nation had even started. And was disloyal to the country that had given him a professional qualification and...