Millions…billions…oh well, never mind the trillions, already I only have a vague idea of the amount a billion of something represents. However, politicians seem to have a very fast learning curve in getting to know these vast amounts of something, particularly if denoted in spending money. We, in South Africa, have a charming young woman, recently elected as Mayor of Cape Town who has become a dab hand at billions.., the trillions better beware! Not long ago when this lady was a thin, hungry looking girl, her minor gift of the gab allowed her to be present in today’s government and politics fed her well, she fattened up nicely to carry the Mayoress’ chain. Her job is of course to improve the life of the poor and like a true politician she gives the impression that in order to do this, other people’s money (OPM) has to be spent to achieve this goal. And dear Patricia is at it, if millions are not good enough, she might go a bit higher to billions. For a girl who had to count in cents not so long ago it is a fine promotion and despite her being less poor and thin, it’s doubtful the other poor will be better off for all her spending OPM.

When politicians start throwing OPM around they appear to lose all notions. Let’s see if we can comprehend those vast numbers.

What is a million?—in seconds—. About 12 days.

What is a billion?—in seconds—- About 32 years.

What is a trillion?—in seconds—-About 32.000 years. 

Thirty two thousand years ago our forefathers and mothers were hunting game and some of them painted pictures in caves in France and Spain. What happened in Africa we don’t know. Neanderthaler people were living at Gibraltar and the Caucasus as far as we know. Few of us, if any, can imagine such a time span, another 25 000 years had to pass before agriculture made its modest appearance in human history. 

Yet, politicians juggle with these vast amounts of money as if it were their own. France now has an external debt of more than 8 trillion euros accumulated since de Gaulle’s time (1970). Every french person, babies included owes 130 000 euros to an unknown lender. The same story is true in most European countries, if you have the audacity to get born, be ready to cough up at least 100 000 euros. America’s debt is so colossal that I’ll not even try to work it out.

Here, at home in the beloved country, we are not yet in such dire circumstances but our government is working at it. Finance minister Trevor Manuel had kept the spending under the thumb until 2008 but then the communist faction led astray by no-math Zuma, started to bleed the country at a rate that had never happened before. No newspaper mentions the fact that the country’s external debt has increased fourfold in the last four years and that because of Moody’s downgrading of country and banks more borrowing has to occur to keep this debt alive.

All these difficulties would be surmountable if only South Africa would have a population that could work. In my blog Why is Africa Africa? I came to the conclusion that the African population is unique because it never had to work to stay alive. An enviable situation you might say but you have to keep your wants very modest. The fact that in South Africa half the potential working population does not work is not seen as an economic aberration by the likes of Zuma and his black ministers because their proud culture does not include work or schooling. Had some great genius been able to inject the black African population with a magic ‘chinese work tradition’ potion, Africa would have been a great world power with all its assets.

And now I come to another fact that is smooched over in this country and that I hesitate to mention. It is my belief that part of the black and coloured population of South Africa hate the whites for the simple fact that they are white. I know, I know… ‘tell me something I don’t know’… some of you might say, yet, this notion is energetically denied by most black forums. White farmers are killed to steal their firearms, it is said although it is much easier to buy weapons from cop or soldier. Many more ‘excuses’ are suggested to deny racial hatred as a motive for murder but the evidence points the other way. Generalising on the strength of examples is not supposed to be rational but what about this young white woman in Cape Town who a few days ago had her throat slit for a phone and a tv screen, this ex-boxer who, at his daughter’s birthday party, was shot dead as the murderer was told by one of his pals, “Shoot the big one!” The big fellow made a big mistake, instead of protecting his daughter with his body he should have attacked and used his iron fists. None of these criminals can shoot because they’re scared and stupid; that one settler, one bullet is a joke, one settler, a hundred bullets is more apt.

Anyway, twenty years of black interpreted South African democracy has led to a gradual diminution of the country’s wealth due to the greed and incompetence of government. Not a ministry functions since Mr. Mandela took a hike. Whatever was expected from that gentleman turned into a vast deception. What else could it have been, 27 years of jail, looked after by the apartheid government does not make a leader. I often wonder who was or is Mr. Mandela’s promoter to have created such a worldwide celebrity while his own people seem to have forgotten him already.

About 30 million South Africans have a hard job to find enough food and shelter to stay alive. They have no worldly notions because of illiteracy and subsistence battles. These are the people that decide the kind of government South Africa will have because they are black and with a culture in which work is not included.

Mbeki and Zuma have proved themselves as total failures, I remember Mbeki from his hippy Sussex ‘university’. His study effort translated itself in trying to shag a maximum of white girls, while the Scandinavians, poor suckers, paid for his ‘studies’. Zuma, we all know about, lies, thievery and a total ignorance about financial matters are his trademark. Not only do the papers repeat his lies everyday, they also dish up the lies about what happened during the apartheid years.

A great one is about District Six in Cape Town that was supposed to be such an idyllic, quaint part of the city. Well let me tell you, D6 in the fifties was a hotbed of crime and prostitution. My brother who was a purser on one of the Rotterdam Lloyd passenger liners that came by Cape Town a few times per year, on my advice, had to warn crew and passengers that that place was out of bounds. Personally I have known of foreign sailors badly beaten up and robbed at best, others disappeared. Today’s ‘historians’ try to make you believe that D6 was just as nice a place as the Bokaap on Signal Hill. Just as big a lie as the fairie tale about the splendid leaders of the ANC who were only interested in the country’s lucre. Check out their finances, 1994-2000!

The apartheid party had promised when communism did not pose a threat anymore to the country, its politics would change and this is the only promise of a political party in the world to be honoured that I know of.

When are we going to admit that black government according to western democratic ideas has failed in Africa? Not only in Africa in some places in America also. A black mayor and his handlangers have totally destroyed Detroit, which used to be the greatest industrial city in that country, if not the world. Today the police of that wrecked city have posters, warning visitors that they enter the city on their own risk and responsibility. The mayor once boasted that he was Detroit’s biggest fraudster and he was voted in once more by the black, unemployed population.

In this morning’s Cape Times an old political hack worries about another 7 years of Zuma reign will wreck the African National Congress. The bloke doesn’t understand that the ANC won’t be destroyed but our beautiful country will be for certain.

What can be done to rid South Africa of black government? The Boers of course had foreseen this situation but hadn’t come up with anything better.

However, the solution is plain, government must be outsourced to professional people. All over the world politicians keep on making a mess of their countries, leading them into wars or breaking them financially. All that must be left of national government is a bench of judges, something like the fellows of the Constitutional Court who will examine tenders for the few ministries that will be needed: agriculture, finance, industry, transport, harbours, fishing. There are plenty of companies capable of managing these activities, levying taxes and being paid a % on a turnover controlled by the judges. Medicine, schooling, social spending and police are to be managed by the finance ministry from taxes levied on the profitable ministries and from a modest sales tax.

This outsourced government will show a profit instead of a 32 thousand year loss and the tax rate on the population will be minimal. Politicians will have to start looking for an honest job but will probably finish up in crime.