The good news, for those concerned about hard times coming for former Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga, as a result of the parastatal’s crippling of the economy, is that he has found the place where money grows on trees, which my mother always said didn’t exist.

Jacob’s lawyers are claiming R85 million against his former employer, he is still to receive R9 million in shares and our gun-toting police are a little lost in corridors like these. So relax and remember, wigs are expensive, lawyers also have to scratch a living, and it is only tax payers’ money anyway. Personally I am going to stop banging my head against the wall like this.

I remember back then when the lights started going out and Eskom cut the amount of power allowed to the mining industry, on which SA has traditionally relied so heavily. I had a conversation with a patriotic broker which became heated and led me to take my business elsewhere, determined to put everything into gold bullion. How I wish I had stuck to that, but comment on the financial services industry can wait for another time.

Eskom continues with its plans to hike electricity tariffs by 35% a year for three years, which will bring in R18 billion for the first year. The cost to the economy will far exceed that, says Business Unity South Africa, and some 200 000 jobs could be lost.

Financial adviser Schabir Shaik, jailed for fraud and corruption but paroled on questionable evidence about terminal illness, continues to embarrass Correctional Services and (one would think) President Zuma, every time he takes an outing or talks to the media, which he seems to do whenever he is feeling sociable or pissed off.

In an interview, he is quoted as saying “Why should I even be asking for a pardon?
If three people were part of a so-called plot to elicit funds from the French, why are the French free, why is the president free and why is Shaik still sitting as a convict? C’mon!”
As Correctional Services said: “We can’t force anyone to die”.

After a steady diet of stuff like this, you can’t wait to pick up a copy of The Times (Jan 27) with the front page headline: Audit Disaster : Only 91 out of 256 government bodies (departments and parastatals) get clean audit (from auditor general’s office and Treasury).
It goes on: “Weak leadership and high turnover of top executives are fuelling the dismal performance of government …”).

You can turn to the sports pages but you are likely to read that Proteas coach Mickey Arthur has been fired because of a deteriorating relationship with captain Graeme Smith. Well, not so much news really as a leaked rumour (which seems to be as close to a statement as officialdom can get). Turns out Arthur resigns with a R4.5 million golden handshake but all the selectors were fired. There are vague references to differing visions of future structures.

For the life of me, I know not how sports writers can drag out such rubbish. What we all know, and knew first time round, is that this is really about transformation. Yes, we beat Australia in Australia for the first time and ranked number one in the world in 2008, but that apparently is not the point. We lost some important matches in 2009 and compounded this by fielding a team with no blacks (others of colour don’t count) in the recent final match against England. (True, we won easily to draw the series, but …).


I like the way different viewpoints are reflected in Letters to the Editor. Says one: “I understand the disaster in Haiti and that people are suffering, but there are rich countries to take care of the situation – why poor SA when our own people are dying from HIV/Aids and poverty?”. Another: “I thought the whole point of cartoons was to get us to laugh … how can anybody find the image of a woman about to be raped by the president funny?”. (The woman symbolising Justice).

Four-picture strip by Francis & Rico: Driver/security man with President Zuma behind him in car. “ENJOY YOUR HONEYMOON, MR PRESIDENT?” - “I’ve fallen in love again” …. “IF I MAY SAY, YOUR 5TH WIFE IS ..” – “Sixth. My sixth wife. Haven’t proposed yet” … “YOUR’E SAYING, WHILE ON HONEYMOON WITH YOUR 5TH WIFE…?” “I met my future sixth wife ; Romantic, hey?” … Driver on cellphone:“PATCH ME THROUGH TO P.R., WE’VE GOT ANOTHER CODE 214.

SA has cause for irritation with political correctness but, we heard in a talk radio interview with a British correspondent, it is also getting pretty ridiculous over there, where an ad being placed by a company wanting to fill a vacancy was rejected. The ad was for somebody reliable and hard working. The objection could only have been that this disadvantaged people who were not. Another objection was lodged against an ad saying “must speak English”.