Perhaps it is because it is an election year that I choose to reflect on the last 7 and a half years of my blog and why I started doing it in the first place. The simple reason why I started was because I needed a web presence. I had no web design skills and I wasn't too familiar with Facebook at that time. I have been an avid follower of Fred Wilson for years and used the same platform he used at the time. Fred is an internet pioneer and has left me behind a long time ago but I still avidly read his various postings on a daily basis, he is that prolific. My first post was in July 2006. It's quite interesting reading through some of those posts, I certainly wasn't as opinionated as I am now. I started talking about BEE related stuff and interpreted what was going on around me. As I started to gain confidence I became more and more outspoken on certain issues and even started dabbling in the occasional political swipe as I went along.
My intention was that the blog would become my internet presence. I did set up a Caird website that carries a blog feed on it but I haven't looked at that website in years. In essence the blog has become my internet home. I did rather hope that the masses would come swarming to me for assistance at exorbitant rates because they happened upon my blog. I don't think that's happened much. I have certainly gained a fair amount of notoriety because of it and have found my blog being quoted in the press and in boardrooms – Microsoft cited me as an expert when they launched their equity equivalent programme (but they've never used my services). Once I consulted to Wells Fargo in Boston and I think this is purely because of the blog. A more relevant question is whether I have lost business as a result of the blog. I think this is quite likely, my views are forthright and often very blunt and I think this could and does put a lot of people off using me. I got fired by one client because of my blog and the anti-ANC sentiment that permeates through it, but they asked me to come back a month later.
Perhaps the greatest success of this blog is that I have never pushed content onto people. This post will be my 866th and over the years 120-odd subscribers (including my mother) have volunteered to receive each post via Feedblitz. I am now gaining more subscribers than losing them. I believe that it was making this content freely available without pushing content that has allowed to make contact with and become friends with the best brains in the business. I am in regular contact with people like Chris van Wyk, Obed de Swardt, Ebrahiem Mohammed, Brigitte Brun, Louise Paulsen, Thinus Kruger and Gerhardus Burger. Hell even Kevin Lester sends me the occasional email (Lester still dips his paw in every now and then). Similarly I have rallied against the worst practitioners in the industry (Keith Levenstein) and the myopic platitudes of Ajay Lalu and Thami Mazwai. I have also made it an ambition to educate my reading public that institutionally protected racists like Jimmy Manyi are nothing more than vile racists. On occasion I've received emails from a right winger but I tend to ignore those.
How then does a BEE blog become so political? I certainly had no intention of having a go at the ANC when I started. And I behaved rather well until Jacob Zuma became the biggest embarrassment this country has ever seen. It is now very obvious that you cannot divorce black economic empowerment from politics. It would seem that the politicians like to use transformation as a weapon against those people/companies who are actually implementing the government's programme that the government itself has no idea how to implement it. I've been in this industry since 1994 and have only come across one example of fronting and that was Levenstein's rather feeble attempt at portraying his company as 25% black-owned. What I have seen from a citrus farm in Hazyview, through to a diesel distributor in Jankemp Dorp to a holiday resort in the Western Cape are a bunch of people who have in fact made a major difference to a number of peoples' lives, most of this is as a result of BEE-type policies. Every year I head off to Gerrie Lemmer at the ATKV asking for proof that they spent 1% on SED, I get handed figures that are a multiple of that target. And they do it because they believe they are making a difference to the lives of black people. And this is not the exception. And still the government reminds us that in fact we are racists and are making no contribution to nation-building. And to drive this message home they create programmes (that are fundamentally illegal) through their municipalities and parastatals that are designed to promote cronyism and punish legitimate white and foreign-owned businesses. Just ask my friend Selwyn who is an employer in Newcastle what his interaction with Eskom has been like over the last 10 years. After witnessing all this it became impossible for the blog not to take on a political hue. And because the blog is mine and is a reflection of my specific views I have adopted the mantle of shooting my mouth off. And I will continue doing so because I am allowed to do it in terms of our constitution (something that the NAT government would have most certainly locked me up for) and I feel that I provide some sort of service to those who would like to say what I do but can't or won't. Alas – lucrative government contracts or partnering with the Guptas shall never come my way.
And so we now enter a disastrous phase in the life of BEE where the clueless are once again taking those who make an effort to task. They claim that a level 6 is the average that this is just not good enough. Not that they understand what it takes to get to a level six. They have now sowed so much doubt in the industry with their latest codes that I'm not sure whether it'll fully recover. There is no reason to tolerate this anymore – why do we have to field this abuse when it is now so apparent that the people who are levelling it are doing so to disguise the fact that they are failing in their duty as government or they are spoiling to get hold of an even bigger slice of that lucrative government pie called entitlement. Not only are we taking all this abuse but it is our tax revenue that finances the lavish lifestyles of the abusers. I won't take it anymore. And for that reason I will continue on my bloggy path of self-destruction (and litigation where necessary).
Dramatis Personae
Over the last 7 years I have made reference to a number of people on this blog. Here are some of them
Kevin – sometimes, but not always, Kevin Lester.
jungle jim (always lowercase) – Jimmy Mwanele Manyi. I see he is returning to his African roots, I wonder where it will stop. Xhosa or Zulu X perhaps
The Ralph Lauren person – not too cryptic. The reason why polo shirts are so expensive is because the rider is wearing a Lacoste shirt. I have it on very good authority that the Lauren is the same pronunciation as Lauren Bacall.
Levenstain – Levenstein
Zoomer, Zumachinegun, moron, idiot (usually preceded by the word fucking) – Jacob Zuma
Rob and derivatives – Rob (another word for steal) Davies
Udge – Mr Lalu. The man with the best bristles in the business
Racist – see jungle jim
Mal Ossie – Malusi Gigaba. I think I'll call him Maddox from now on
Incompetent – normally refers to Rob but doesn't ever exclude Zoomer
Zungrabber – Sandile Zungu
Zungs – people like Zungrabber
PLT – pathetic little tw…………….