Feeling Negative

[Alan]

Sorry for the negative post esp as I have not posted for so long. I have one question at the moment. Can anybody point me in the direction of one positive aspect of the present government? Except SARS, things are bad when you look at the reciever as a positive. Things seem to be crumbling and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Electrical power outages, education, law enforcement, judicial, Municipalities.
The reason I feel the way I do at the moment is our beaches and beach front properties were hammered by large waves recently in Ballito as many may have read. To date nothing has been done to repair the damage, this is now having a severe affect on the small local businesses in the area. Many are being forced to close their doors due to the lack of tourism. This results in job losses to our local population. This will also result in the devaluation of the property market in the area. An application was made to province for the disaster relief as the estimated damage is 48 mil and this was turned down. Why would you turn down a legitimate application to one of your prime tourist destinations? Or is the view one of it’s a wealthy area fix it yourselves. Sorry guys this has just really pi$$ed on my battery this morning, this and the news that Eskom is looking for an 18% increase in their tariffs to build more power stations. What have they been doing for the last 10yrs?
Feel much better now that i have had my rant, Thanks everyone.

[stephanfx]

More public holidays

Seriously though, I tend to agree with most of your statements.

[Dave A]

Cool. Let's make public holidays unpaid holidays.
Business not open - business not making money.
Worker not at work - worker not making money either.

[stephanfx]

Yip, sounds about right. But we should actually ask government to pay us instead.

[duncan drennan]

I've been struggling with feeling a bit negative too lately. It sometimes seems like everything that I see points towards us sliding down a slippery slope. At this point I'm hoping for some light to come out of the ANC presidential elections, but I'll have to wait for that.

[stephanfx]

True, to feel negative after a while is only natural, but I watched Atlantis again this weekend (Love those animations), the doctor said something very true,

"It has been my experience that once you have hit the bottom, the only way left, is up".

Just something I thought might brighten the day a little.

[Alan]

LOL, only problem Rock Bottom is still a long way down. Like the joke 'what did Zimbabwe use before candles'?.................'Electricity'
Unfortunatly this is not a joke.

[stephanfx]

My work here is done, I got Alan to laugh

[Dave A]

Seeing as we have something of a vent your spleen thread going here - let me try to give this a shot and see if it helps.

Today I've been trying to follow up on a request for a letter of good standing from Workmen's Compensation. I'm told to resubmit the application. I tell them the matter is now urgent. I get faxed a letter going, "Herewith letter of good standing as requested" with......

A blank Return of earnings form.

Thank you, but that was submitted months ago

My back-up plan was seeing as I was in Pretoria tomorrow, I may as well go raise cane personally at DoL. Oops. Public service strike

I think they've started already.

So I'm sitting in this meeting this afternoon and I mention that this public service strike is rather a PITA. The client responds "They don't do any work anyway - we won't miss them."

Most of the time I'd agree with him - but right now I need that letter of good standing - they can strike all they want after that

[Graeme]

Politicians

A quote from The Economist, 2/6/2007: “Japan’s agriculture minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, hanged himself at his parliamentary apartment in Tokyo. His suicide seemed linked to accusations that he had been fiddling his expenses, and was involved in a scandal about rigged bidding for road-building contracts. The next day an executive from a company implicated in the same scandal fell to his death in another apparent suicide.”

Now; what thought immediately crosses your mind……?

[Dave A]

Now; what thought immediately crosses your mind……?

Definitely not a South African minister?

I can't help like feeling we're at a tricky stage at the moment. In fact it smells like the '80s. Right now we have the following:

A strike that seems to be more a power struggle between factions,complete with tactics reminiscent of the struggle times - gov with a propaganda war and labour who seem to have re-activated the struggle network and method.

In the same action, the potential for a power showdown for control of the armed forces, both police and military, by two different factions.

Military road blocks on access routes to hospitals - on the look-out for "teachers."

Spontaneous service delivery protests - again in the manner of the 80s.

Legislation that holds the potential for pre-publishing censorship on the flimsiest of pretext.

Increased centralisation of the civil service, with a bill that could see the president given the power to make appointments down even to municipal level, making the presence of provincial and municipal level leadership pointless and without any authority.

A president who seems reluctant to hand over the reins of power.

The only encouraging sign at the moment is that some members of the COSATU leadership haven't been arrested. I suspect it wouldn't take too much effort to establish just cause right now.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into the situation

[Dave S]

I've been struggling with feeling a bit negative too lately. It sometimes seems like everything that I see points towards us sliding down a slippery slope. At this point I'm hoping for some light to come out of the ANC presidential elections, but I'll have to wait for that.

Not to pee on any more of your batteries, but the coming ANC elections will not change a thing, it's getting worse, and will continue for a few years yet. Somewhere something has got to give (or break completely) then, and only then, will we start to see a change in our country and our econmics. Only when our Government can prove themselves internationally will there be an improvement in our situation, realistically can you see our government receiving international recognition anytime soon...?