Rassie for
minister
of financé?
A WEEK back I sat at Royal Natal Yacht Club watching the tide come in as the Boks played their desultory World Cup semi-final against Wales. The tide seemed more eventful – a couple of gulls and pelicans on the gradually submerging sandbank alongside St Ives Channel; some fishermen gathering crackershrimp for bait.
Last Saturday I was in the same seat at RNYC. But I can't tell you what the tide was doing, what was happening on the sandbank. There could have been dozens of gals skinnydippiung for all I know – but events in Yokohama on the TV screen were absolutely compelling.
What a final! What a turnaround! England just weren't in the game. A Bok power scrum. This time clever kicking. Feeding the line. Those two pulsating tries. And what tackling. A wily old critter is Rassie.
Okay, England had demolished the All Blacks the weekend before. Can a team peak twice in a row? The Boks had to play lesser opponents . These are imponderables. But, oh boy, we were there on the day. We were on target, firing on all cylinders. So much for the dreary caution everyone was predicting.
Driving back, the CBD was a turmoil of celebration. Every taxi in Durban was furiously hooting, people were dancing and waving green and gold shirts. (For all I know, there could even have been a mass skinnydip on the harbour sandbanks).
Rugby suddenly has a huge number of new adherents. This will surely play through in the future, and very positively.
Yet Moody's, the financial ratings agency, has put the country in a "negative outlook" category. They should be shown footage of the final and the enthusiastic vibrancy it occasioned. It's not too late for them to change their minds. Maybe we should make Rassie minister of finance.
Rail hub option
INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener suggests in his latest grumpy newsletter that the best way for Tito Mboweni to achieve a meaningful cut in government spending would be to move the seat of national government to a desolate rail hub in the middle of nowhere.
Greener says the finance minister's medium-term budget speech last week revealed that he – "and perhaps only he" - has grasped that it's the government expenditure, particularly the salary levels of management-level state employees, that urgently needs to be trimmed.
"The remuneration and perks of civil servants consume around 46% of the government's tax collection and have grown faster than anything else in this economy. The Minister's own chubby and well-fed mien tells this story rather adequately.
"But it's unlikely that any cabinet member is going to risk the power base by trying to do something about it beyond tinkering with car allowances, cell phone upgrades and plane seat selection. "How about moving the whole circus of tax-eaters from Cape Town and Pretoria to a rail hub like Noupoort in the sort of middle of the nation? It would initially be expensive, but it would thin the ranks of civil servants appreciably and discourage foreign potentates from coming to 'strengthen bilateral ties'."
Tailpiece
HE TAKES her home after their first date. When they get to the door he asks if he can come inside.
"Absolutely not. I never allow a man to come in on the first date."
"All right then. How about on the last date?"
Last word
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers. - Daniel J Boorstin
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