Paul Janisch

And then Zuma fires the Minister of Finance

Reminds me of the old joke – and that's how the fight started. To say I was not livid when I heard this news would be an understatement the size of the Christmas myth. I was absolutely pissed off, more than pissed off, I was completely fucked off. We will speculate forever as to the real reasons behind Nene's dismissal, Zuma will never tell. But it seemed pretty obvious that Nene told Dud Miyeni to clip her wings, she ran to number one (she really should run a lot more) and he solved the problem the way he had done before. I'll let Alec Hogg take up the story

Here's a story I was told by someone who should know about these things. Three months ago, he says, then Minister of Mines Ngoako Ramatlhodi was asked by one of Zuma's sons to "intervene" after a mine owned by the politically connected Gupta family was issued a Section 54 notice. These notices are powerful bureaucratic weapons, enforcing the closure of the entire mining operation until safety concerns have been satisfied. Ramathlodi referred the agitated Zuma scion to the Department of Mineral Resources, explaining it was not his place to intervene. After that Ramathlodi refused to take the younger Zuma's phone calls. The next day, the Mining Minister was fired, replaced by an unknown junior politician from the Free State, one Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane. The only time Zwane had previously surfaced was when various associations with the Guptas became public. It sounded too brazen, too fanciful to be taken seriously. I'm not so sure anymore. Over the past week, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene blocked a rather transparent plundering attempt engineered by SAA chairman Dudu Myeni. She wants to interpose a small finance house into a long-ago arranged deal between the airline and Airbus on the premise that this tiny firm would eliminate SAA's currency risk. The actual purpose, as former JSE chief executive and SAA board member Russell Loubser puts it, was to fleece fees from the multi-billion rand transaction. Nene publicly issued a statement to overrule the idiotic scheme. Last night Zuma fired him, replacing the respected technocrat with a low ranking ANC cadre even more of an unknown than his new Mining Minister

I'm not going to go into this story any more. The camel was buckling already and this might have been the last grain of sand that pushed it over. Zuma now had completely raped the country. Oh and he wasn't finished yet. Fuck – if you can fire the minister of finance because he has identified your girlfriend as the charlatan she is why stop there. Rumours then abounded that a number of other ministers were on their way out, Rob included. I would imagine that Zuma was "pumped' (his nether regions are really the only functioning part of his body) on that Thursday morning. He had shown South Africa who was boss and he was on a roll. There was going to be a big firepool party at either Nkandla or the Guptas' kaya in Saxonwold. I was clinging onto anything here and the potential firing of Rob was pretty good news to me. But then you had to look at Zuma's MO. Fire a minister and replace him with a dumbassed patsy. If Rob went then his replacement would have been there to listen to the black business council and jungle jim and them only.

What then – well David Des Douglas Sacrificial Lamb etc would have been lobbied to cancel the PPPFA (Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act) and this would have been the panacea for black business to lap all government business. The new minister of trade and industry wouldn't argue and would publish even more ridiculous BEE charters to make compliance even more impossible. It is a sin to be white in this country you know, and they would fucking show us. If you want to see what our Des(olate) might have done take a look at Ray Hartley's black comedy article on his first day in office – Hartley stresses this is a work of fiction.

I'm not sure that Zuma has the same level of power to sack incompetent ministers (they are all incompetent barring Pravin and Hanekom) and replace them with even bigger idiots. I think he is on a bit of leash now. I wouldn't underestimate him though, he's still a dangerous idiot and can inflict a lot of damage in a very short period of time.

What then of this PPPFA and what'll happen if it is repealed?

The act exists to provide preference points or preference in general to a certain group of people. In the past it focused on levels of ownership. Now it works on BEE scores. I would imagine that Treasury is going to have a major problem with the new retarded BEE regime and preference points because it is going to end up in court. This is the way that businesses get an advantage over each other. If you take the act away what are you going to do? How are you going to favour a certain group over another without defining that group in some way. What our good racist jungle jim doesn't understand is that there is no other way without violating the constitution, not that jungle gives a fuck about that. I believe that it is a little too standard grade for his lower grade intelligence to grasp.

Zungurisation – shame I have been picking on poor old Sand Isle unnecessarily it appears

The Sunday Times wrote this week that Zungu was out of favour with number one. Bugger – from now on Zungurisation will be known as Guptafication.

Happy new year everyone. I'm very positive about next year. I think Zuma is going to take a pounding but he will be probably be here at the end of 2016 because he will do anything to stay of jail. I don't know if he fully understands the extent to which the average tax payer fucking hates him though and how they are now really baying for his sordid HIV free blood. Here's a song for him and his bloated and useless cabinet (excluding Pravin and Derek).

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The speech that caused the trouble - FERIAL HAFFAJEE

 

This is the 1000th post or THE SUCCESS OF BLACK BUSINESS WILL BE MEASURED AGAINST THE FAILURE OF WHITE BUSINESS

This blog was started in August 2006. I started writing it as a guide to people who wanted to know more about the vagaries of black economic empowerment. Perhaps the liberating experience of having a platform to pretty much say what you want went to my head because the blog soon evolved into a political vudderfok venting place. Many would argue that it devolved into such a home. There were some particularly good posts - I have to say this myself because no one has told me as much - that contained my analyses of certain aspects of this sordid industry that I operate in. Other times there were knee jerk digs at the quality of personage that works in our rudderless regering. I came across some of the biggest racists that this country has ever seen (jungle jim) and in certain cases I endorsed one or two people who have slipped so far in my estimation that I cannot understand why I bothered with them in the first place (Thami Mazwai).

This post is a short(ish) reflection on the last 9 years. A hell of a lot has happened in those years. The first codes of good practice came out in February 2007 followed by a number of sector codes. All this good work was negated by Rob's Folly (revised BEE codes). We have seen the politically connected benefit (Penuel Maduna under Mbeki – and I don't care if I spelled his name incorrectly) and now Zungu under Zuma. To a certain extent Zungu got his arse kicked in the Arcelor-Mittal deal – but not hard enough unfortunately because it is his band of BBC merry men that are attempting to hijack the economy with the full endorsement of Number One and his handlers.

When I started in this business I believed that we could make a go of this empowerment thing. The Maslow-approved scorecard made so much sense that it could only but work. That was in spite of the fact that the codes and all of the supporting documentation wasn't particularly well written and that the DTI had absolutely no clue what they were doing. Even when you take this into account we saw an amazing take-up of BEE throughout the country. I measure this by some of my more remote clients who couldn't get a scorecard out of the local Worcestor butcher in 2007 and now you can get scorecards out of their local filling station. If the scorecard message is getting through to rural Worcestor then it must mean that a greater awareness has drifted through the economy.

This is what happened over the next five years

1. Scores steadily improved. I noticed that certain verticals stuck to an industry average, the banking sector is probably the most obvious.
2. The message circulated throughout the economy
3. Investments in enterprise development (more often than not donations) and skills development increased
4. High profile BEE deals petered out. Most of them had been concluded and needed to run their course, in many cases they were extended
5. The new breed of potential BEE takers started getting pissed off because the deals were done. They persuaded Rob that a change was needed

And so change arrived. Rob's revised codes were bludgeoned through, the DTI paid scant regard for any comments. And here we sit on the cusp of the new BEE era.

The NEW BEE ERA

I hate the term BEE, irritates me. The new ERA is simply a system where by a small cabal of connected Africans (someone described them to me as the Aurora crowd but I think you can throw in the Imperial Crown Trading crew too) designed a system whereby they would benefit under state procurement because white companies (a broad term describing everything that is not black by definition) could not compete on points or on racial profile. To quote Loane Sharp

The government is now creating 100 "black industrialists" (the government's term), and it appears that the much-vaunted R1-trillion infrastructure programme is being delayed to ensure that government-nominated industrialists win the overwhelming proportion of civil engineering tenders.

You see the problem here was that companies were making such great progress in their BEE endeavours that black owned companies could no longer compete on points. To make matters worse they would also need to go through the expense of empowerment even though they were black just to match a white owned competitor.

"Nee fok dit," they said sobbing into their single malts at the Michelangelo. "We'll reduce everything down to race and create a system that can only suit us." And so they did, the revised BEE codes are just one small element of this, the PPPFA is the next to fall.

Where do we find ourselves in this 1000^th post? A simple summary must be – THE SUCCESS OF BLACK BUSINESS WILL BE MEASURED AGAINST THE FAILURE OF WHITE BUSINESS, and ultimately the economy. Anthony Butler perhaps captured this sentiment perfectly when describing Malusi's ridiculous visa rules

It would be comforting to imagine that this is merely a "departmental silo" problem, in which Home Affairs is preoccupied with child trafficking, while Tourism is preoccupied with visitor convenience. Or that this is all a matter of face for a young minister who wants to be president, has failed as minister of public enterprises, and now cannot bow down before the forces of reaction. But it is much worse than that. (I)t is about race. The tourism industry, no matter how many jobs it creates, shows a white face to government, and the success of the sector breeds resentment.

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Has Treasury been captured by the black business lobby?

Draft PPPFA regulation disgust (discussed and cussed)

Draft PPPFA regulation disgust (discussed and cussed)

In his 2015 state of the nation giggle session our very competent, intelligent and decisive president made the following announcement.

Government will set-aside 30% of appropriate categories of State procurement for purchasing from SMMEs, co-operatives as well as township and rural enterprises.

We are quite used to this esteemed personage's platitudes and incredible decisiveness so it might be quite strange to the average person when he does actually deliver on his promises.  He has in fact in the new draft PPPFA regulations.  A Bardot delivery had these same regulations sent to me, it would be wrong not to post them up here for your perusal.

Here are a few of some of the features:

1. 80/20 works for R10m to R50m
2. 90/10 for more than R50m.  If you are seeing new QSE patterns emerging you would be on the money
3. 50/50 points' system for less than R10m

The 80/20 and 90/10 systems work on standard BEE points' allocations.  However the 50/50 system is a lot more interesting. This is what it looks like

Points will be allocated in accordance with the table below

No.	Criteria	Points
1	Price	50
2	Specific Goals:
2.1	Individuals who had no franchise in national elections before the 1983 and 1993 Constitutions	12
2.2	51% or more ownership by females	12
2.3	51% or more ownership by persons with a disability	12
2.4	SMME (Small, Medium and Micro-enterprise)	6
2.5	LED (Local Economic Development)	8

This harks back to the 2001 PPPFA regulations. No franchise before the two constitutions effectively includes all black people as defined. Africans had not vote before '83 and '93. Coloureds and Indians didn't have the vote before 1983. The reference to disabled and women includes ALL women and disabled people.

I do rather like the inclusion of SMME and Local Economic Development because the issue with the current regulations is that it didn't favour regional businesses. What Zille and Kane-Berman missed is this paragraph

(2) (a) For the specific goals under 2.2 to 2.5 in the table above, the Minister of Finance (Minister) may, from time to time, prescribe targets that must be procured from certain categories of person or commodity groups. Therefore, the number of points, as well as the groups referred to in the specific goals in sub-regulation (1)

What this says is that Nene may use set asides. Something that the Constitution would not be happy with (as if that has ever been a problem for our literate and competent legislators), and something that Treasury banned in 2006.

Now onto some of the more interesting features of 2.1 above (you will see on page 8 that this requirement may never be removed from any tender). You'll notice the word "INDIVIDUAL", this is a very specific word, it refers to individuals and not classes of people. As I mentioned African people did not have the vote until 1994. This means that only individuals who are over 21 years old and African can qualify. Indians and Coloureds get a rawer deal. They would need to be 31 years and older (as if they haven't been shafted enough under the revised codes). As this regulation gets on in the years so will the age of the black person increase.

This is pure BBC – a subtle attempt at favouring Africans over other black groups.

Another issue which plagues me is the value of the tender. What the 50/50 system does is give certain types of people up to a 100% price advantage. If they tick all the boxes under 2 above and get 1 more point for price they could 51 points which beats the bidder that only offered the best price (cost effectiveness is a vital ingredient of section 217). The rules are that they should win the bid. But this system is only for bids for less than R10m. If that bidder comes in a R10,000,000.01 then they are no longer part of the R10m scheme. In effect this system will only work for bids less than R5m.

The whole system is completely open for abuse. It is absolutely unconstitutional and unaffordable.   Related articles

Has Treasury been captured by the black business lobby?

Has Treasury been captured by the black business lobby?

Has the Treasury been captured by the black business lobby? Has it bowed before the powerful wind of racial nationalism sweeping through the ruling party and its communist and trade union allies?

If so, will the Reserve Bank be the next domino to fall?

Until now, the Treasury, like the Reserve Bank, has been a bulwark against some of the more reckless tendencies in the government.

But new draft regulations allowing government tenders worth less than R10-million to be evaluated up to 50% on racial and other empowerment criteria and only 50% on price, suggest it is no longer able or willing to resist the racial agenda being pursued by President Jacob Zuma’s allegedly directionless government.

That the Treasury should be willing to incur these higher costs when it is supposed to be keeping government spending under control also suggests the commitment of the ANC to racial ideology is as relentless as that of the National Party (NP).

Tougher black economic empowerment (BEE) requirements were recently put on the statute book, along with tougher employment equity demands.

via www.rdm.co.za

The term I have used in the past is Zungurisation.  The term is possibly unfair but Mr Zungu has been pushing for this.  I haven't seen these proposed changes.  There is little doubt that this proposal will not work constitutionally but this has never stopped those who insist on pushing it through.  Logic would suggest that an almost broke fisc would never go for this.  But they will, they will push it through and then we are in a whole heap of trouble.  Not that they care, and why on earth should we?

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Ownership uber alles - can anyone confirm this?

Tourism BEE plan will kill jobs, critics say - why Tourism first?

The (Tourism) draft codes of good practice were published in the government gazette for public comment over the next two months.

"These codes are even more stringent than the already burdensome generic B-BBEE codes, creating additional hurdles which will negatively affect the tourism industry’s ability to create jobs," Mr Hill-Lewis said.

The industry is facing a slump in tourism, ostensibly brought about by the change in visa regulations that requires prospective visitors to SA to apply in person at the office of an embassy. Also, tourists accompanied by minors must be in possession of an unabridged birth certificate when travelling to SA.

Mr Davies, however, defended the sector-specific thresholds, saying they would "ensure that many enterprises ... contribute towards transformation, which will not be the case if the sector was using the amended generic codes".

In terms of the gazetted proposals, the exempted micro-enterprises must generate a total annual revenue of less than R5m, compared with the R10m threshold in the generic codes; qualifying small enterprises must make a total revenue of between R5m and R45m, lower than the R10m–R50m bracket in the generic codes; and exempt large enterprises must make a total annual revenue of more than R45m, lower than the R50m threshold in the generic codes.

The black ownership requirement is also higher in the tourism code and is set at 30% +1 vote, rather than the 25% +1 vote in the generic codes.

Mr Davies said this target "will ensure an increase in transferring economic assets to and mainstreaming of black people in the sector".

Another measure aimed at creating more opportunities for emerging black-owned enterprises is the target for supplier development, which is set at 3% of net profit after tax (npat) compared with the 2% of npat in the generic codes.

Mr Davies said the implementation of supplier development by established businesses in the sector "will lead to job creation and overall growth in the sector".

The amended tourism sector code also allocates more points for the procurement from suppliers that are at least 51% black owned. The weighting points allocated to this, are 12 in order to incentivise support for black-owned enterprises.

Mr Hill-Lewis rejected Mr Davies’s arguments in favour of the proposed codes for the tourism sector. "The DA firmly believes government’s focus must be on empowering and advancing those who are left out of the economy and trapped in unemployment. These codes, however, do the opposite and further benefit the enriched by stifling growth and entry into the industry," he said.

"The tourism industry constitutes 9% of our gross domestic product and employs 1.5-million South Africans. Its growth and success is vital to growing our economy and creating jobs for the 36% of South Africans who cannot find work."

via www.bdlive.co.za

Why is the tourism industry the first to publish their code.  I think it's because tourism includes gambling.  Gambling is big bucks and you need licences to operate casinos.  And you need a level 2 to retain that licence.  Zungurisation.  

There are a number of significant issues that this article covers.  Things like Malusi's tourism stifling immigration policy, increased thresholds (ownership 30.1%, ED and SD now 3.5% of NPAT) et al.  The big issue here is that we can submit comments to until our PCs plutz but they are going to be ignored.  I know that the DTI wants all sectors to mimic their racially skewed policies and that is not to be negotiated.  

I agree with the DA here, these codes will stifle job opportunities and growth.  But what we need to do now is allow market forces to dictate what policies are reasonable and implementable.  You do have to feel for the gambling industry - they need a level 2 to retain their gaming licences.  And this government has shown how they will push a very narrow empowerment agenda ahead of the economy's requirements. 

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Section 217 in the spotlight

Rob grovels and takes the fall for his lackeys

October is adamant that no mischief was intended — "it was put into the notice but the effect of it was not understood". Innocent intervention or not, it is one for which his boss, Mr Davies, has had to grovel.

via www.bdlive.co.za

We all know what happened here. A certain lobbyist or lobby group might have mentioned that the broad-based clause would prevent the Zungurisation (Zungurization in the USA) of the economy. The lobbyists must have suggested that this economy can only benefit from the Zungurisation process.

A synonym could be oligarchism, it's still not clear

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