ANC DIVIDED, ARE THEY READY TO FALL? September 24, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in Politics.Tags: president, south africa, Trevor Manuel
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Jacob Zuma’s supporters left no stone unturned to ensure that his road to becoming President of South Africa was smoothed over, they did not care who they hurt in the process and of course their actions has caused great division in the ANC camp.
The ordinary man in the street may well be excused if they wonder what on earth happened in our country this last week, President Mbeki was forced to resign by his own party just a few months before the next general election in South Africa. What was the purpose behind this?
A man who is respected worldwide (Mbeki) is removed to make room for a man (Zuma) who may be corrupt, whose morals is suspect and who will allow the country to become ungovernable just to achieve his goal.
When Mr. Mbeki resigned the the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka who is loyal to him also resigned, which left the country without a clear leader prior to the 2009 election. Now we have a situation where our country will be in the hands of someone who is virtually unknown to most people outside the ANC camp, namely Kgalema Motlanthe.
Kgalema Motlanthe previously raised concerns about what he believed were Mbeki’s attempts to impose the government’s decisions on the ANC when Mbeki wanted to take action against Madlala-Routledge, Deputy Health Minister, arguing that she had undermined not only him but the ANC as a whole.
Read his profile here:
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=848569
Trevor Manuel, our Finance Minister also resigned, which caused the financial markets to tumble sharply as the overseas markets reacted to this negative news. He later advised that he resigned as Mbeki had appointed him in the position and that he was willing to serve under the new administration if they wanted him to continue in his post as Finance Minister.
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad and Science Minister Mosibudi Mangena has indicated that they also intended resigning therefore a third of the Cabinet resigned after Mr. Mbeki resigned.
This once again proves to me that one cannot understand the African mindset, they make a mockery of our country by making decisions without thinking what the impact on the country and its people would be.
What next?
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MBOWENI’S RACIAL SLUR ON WHITE SHAREHOLDERS September 19, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News.Tags: Mboweni, reserve bank
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The attitude of the Reserve Bank Governor at the annual general meeting is a cause for concern to all South African’s no matter what the colour of their skin!
Tito Mboweni should not allow emotions to cause him to be rude and disrespectful to the bank’s shareholders, if the shareholders were out of order it should have been handled in a professional manner by him and he should not have made the comments he made.
The Bank is somewhat unusual in that its shares may be traded privately. It is one of only nine central banks worldwide to have private shareholders and there are 2m shares in issue where one receives one vote for every 200 shares. Shareholders and government are allowed to appoint seven directors each.
In view of the above the annual general meeting should be held according to specific guidlines and shareholders are entitled to ask questions and expect to receive intelligent answers to these questions.
Mboweni refused to allow certain shareholders to speak, he said: “I’m running the meeting, not you. If you don’t like the way I run the meeting you can leave. And you’re not welcome back.”
When another shareholder said that Mboweni’s conduct was “shocking” Mr. Mboweni responded: “You mustn’t speak to me the way white people used to speak to black people.”
Where in the world do you find such conduct from an executive of a Financial Institution towards its shareholders? He was conducting a standard shareholders meeting and as such the shareholders by virtue of their holdings have reasonable grounds to raise questions to the board/directors of the company.
What does Mboweni have to hide? Maybe the shareholders should ask for an audit of the SA Reseve Bank’s books to ascertain why their questions are not being answered.
Go to this link to read the interview with Michael Deurr one of the shareholders:
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/…
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DOES THE USA FINANCIAL CRISIS AFFECT SOUTH AFRICA? September 16, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News.Tags: banking, financial crisis
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The above question was directed at a South African financial advisor today in one of our local newspapers and the answer was: “No.”
It amazes me to see this type of response, no wonder the financial world is in such a mess!
It is obvious that the crash of Lehman Brothers will affect our financial market. Why do they have to lie to the general public? It certainly will not help the general public because if they listen to these lies and continue to bury their heads in the sand they will wake up with a big shock when everything comes tumbling down around them.
Greed is the underlying cause of the present financial crisis in the world, the huge organizations wanted to please their shareholders by posting huge profits every quarter and while chasing these huge profits they forgot to take the usual care to ensure that their “book” was sound and that sound financial principles were applied.
The USA and the UK are in a recession and many financial institutions in both these countries are in serious trouble and the big insurance companies who underwrites or acts as re-insurers are also experiencing a huge financial crisis (for example AIG).
What effect is this going to have on SA? An enourmous effect because our economy and financial markets are closely linked to theirs and it will certainly cause our shares to drop as can be seen on the All Share Index today which dipped below 25000 for the first time in a long while today.
The whole world is in for a very rough ride, we have seen nothing yet, watch the Asian markets tumble sharply now because they are going to feel it very badly due to the fact that they are mainly exporters of goods and are reliant on their overseas buyers.
My advice? Pay off your debts fast, cut up your credit cards immediately, stop spending on luxury items and start saving. The future is very uncertain so many jobs are being lost so do not get complacent and think it cannot happen to you, it can!
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RAZELLE BOTHA OVERCOMES HER TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE September 10, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in Uncategorized.Tags: Razelle Botha, shot, victim
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Eighteen-year-old Razelle Botha, who was left partially paralysed after she was shot in a house robbery in Pretoria, is winging her way around Canada and will be visiting Calgary University where she will be sorting out her enrolment and other academic matters ahead of next year when she plans to begin studying either medicine or actuary science.
Razelle was shot five times in the back eight months ago when two gunmen ambushed her in her bedroom at her family’s Moreleta Park home. The 18-year-old, who was in Pretoria East Hospital’s ICU for about two weeks with a near-severed spine, started her rehabilitation in February and after a lot of hard work she is now well enough to travel.
Razelle’s mother, Cobie, this week said her daughter was having a fantastic time overseas, where she was on a three-week road trip with her father. “She absolutely loves it and is having a ball.”
“The holiday is doing wonders for her and is helping her overcome her ordeal,” she said, adding that while Razelle was still using a wheelchair and crutches she was recovering well.
It is wonderful to see the fighting spirit of this young girl who touched the lives of thousands of people across the globe and saw hundreds of letters of support pouring in from across South Africa and the world, because she did not give up, she took everything in her stride and carried on with her life.
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OSCAR “BLADE RUNNER” PISTORIUS WINS GOLD! September 9, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in Sport, Uncategorized.Tags: gold, Oscar Pistorius, paralympics
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Paralympic gold for Oscar today! Oscar came from behind and and snatched gold from United States’ Jerome Singleton during the finals of the Men’s 100m T44 race. Oscar seemed to be out of the race after a slow start on the wet track, but he powered down the staight and pulled off the win! The runner in the photo with him is United States’ Marlon Shirley.
Oscar won a legal battle in May for the right to run in the Beijing Olympics against able-bodied athletes. However, he failed to meet the qualifying time in the 400m, but he is setting his sights on the London 2012 Olympics!
Well done Oscar, all the best for the 200m and 400m races!
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GOLD, GOLD, GOLD, GOLD! September 8, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in Uncategorized.Tags: gold, medal, Natalie Du Toit, Oscar Pistorius, paralympic
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Natalie Du Toit won our first gold medal at the Beijing Paralympics when she won her 100m butterfly event in the pool in a world record time.
Not to be outdone Charl Bouwer claimed gold in the 400m freestyle (class S13) in a new world record time of 4:14.02.
Natalie claimed her second gold medal in the 100m freestyle (class S9) event and we hope to see a few more gold’s from her soon!
Philippa Johnson added the fourth gold in the Individual Equestrian Championships (Grade IV).
Now we are waiting for Oscar Pistorius (the “Blade Runner”) to strike gold, he will be running the 100m, 200m and 400m events. He is a double amputee and races with prosthetic legs.
Well done to all our paralympic athletes, we are very proud of all your achievements, even if you do not win a medal, you do us proud just by being there!
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SOUTH AFRICA FACES ANARCHY September 2, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News.Tags: anarchy, ANC government, ungovernable
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South Africa risks sliding into anarchy if level-headed people within the ANC as well as other influential people in society do not speak out against dangerous utterances which undermine the country’s constitutional democracy, legal expert, Professor Extraordinaire Shadrack Gutto has warned.
Speaking at the inaugural lecture of the Tshwane University of Technology/Pretoria News Intellectual Public Lecture Series, Gutto said South Africa was experiencing an absurd situation, where functionaries of the ruling party were labelling the courts as “counter revolutionary”, and were threatening to make the country ungovernable if the courts made decisions which were not favourable to the ruling party.
Read the rest of this article written by Babington Maravanyika (a black person) by going to this link:
This is a MUST read for all those who are interested in politics in SA!
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BUNDUBLOGGERS INCREASE YOUR TRAFFIC August 28, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in Uncategorized.Tags: bundu, traffic
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I joined “Bundublog” during March 2008, in South African speak “Bundu” means “in the bush” or at the back of beyond, somewhere far away from city life. Bundublog is a free wordpress blog open to all those of us who live on the African continent. It is great because you get to know fellow Africans from our continent and learn more about their country and customs.
Many bloggers will agree with me when I say that you have to have a passion for the subject you choose to write about and you must make it interesting for a third party to read. I have chosen to write about South Africa, its people, their customs, general news, etc. I try to vary the subject matter and to tell the truth as I see it and this then attracts comments from people all over the world who have not experienced the type of things we experience in Africa.
I am still very much a “newbee” at this, but I did have success in attracting traffic to my blog by reading other blog posts from various blogs and trying out their tips. I will list a few of the successes below:
One blogger challenged people to the “30 day challenge” and he maintained that if you can write one post a day for 30 days that the traffic to your blog would increase dramatically. Of course you must not write rubbish, keep it interesting and not too long. After the first 4 days I could see that his challenge was going to be a winner for me and I just watched my daily traffic stats increase. Apparently if you post daily there is more likelihood that the search engines will pick up your posts.
Another tip is to try and blog about something very current and of interest to the world. For example when Nelson Mandela turned 90 years old the world was very interested in the occasion therefore if you had posted a piece about him, his birthday, etc. you would have had many overseas visitors to your blog. The same can be said about the Beijing Olympics, especially the opening ceremony.
I also found a site called “Entrecard” and they have helped me to attract a lot of new people to my blog and in doing so I once again made new friends in this community. It is free to join and has tremendous advantages. Have a look at them by clicking on the “E” on the advert you see to the right of this post, join them and see your traffic increase. The idea is to visit the blogs, read and comment on as many posts as you feel you want to, drop your card on them and most of the time they will then visit your blog and drop their card on you.
There are obviously many more tips to increasing your traffic, but I do not want to make this a long post, just try and make your blog user friendly and do not clutter it up with so many things that it takes ages to load in your visitors browser. If I have to wait for more than 2 minutes for the blog to load I tend to want to close that page and go to the next blog.
I have also asked a few people to visit my blog and to give constructive criticism and reviews on it and that has helped me as well. Go to the following link and ask them to review your blog:
I hope this has helped some of the new Bundubloggers out there, remember the whole point of the exercise is to enjoy yourself and to meet new people to share ideas with!
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AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CONTINUED August 27, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in History.Tags: , affirmative action, whites
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Relax Max asked a few questions in his comment on my recent post on Affirmative Action in South Africa and I am going to try and elaborate a bit more to improve understanding of the system in our country.
It is quite a huge subject to cover in the South African context, therefore I will not do an indepth post, just a few highlights, etc.
First of all, follow this link to go to the SA Labour Department’s website to see their definition of Affirmative Action:
http://www.labour.gov.za/basic_guides/bguide_display.jsp?guide_id=5848&programme_id=2670
Also click on the link on this page to see the “Employment Equity Act”.
In 1998 the following was reported on CNN about SA planning to adopt AA:
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9810/08/safrica.affirmative.action/
We have a huge majority of blacks in SA as everyone is aware, but prior to the ANC’s take over we have had a history of the minority (whites) paying the bulk of the tax revenues collected and a large portion of this was used to uplift the majority (blacks) i.e. schooling, hospitals, etc. There was only so much that could be done with the taxpayers money given the HUGE majority of blacks who were reliant on upliftment!
The whites actually made the blacks too reliant on handouts instead of teaching them to become self sufficient, but imagine the huge task for a minority race to try and help the majority to be educated, uplifted, taught skills, etc. The present Government cannot manage it either, despite all the International aid they received, there just is not enough resources or skills to cope with the upliftment of the multitude of blacks in South Africa.
Also bear in mind what a big gap there was between the two groups, the whites coming from a skilled and educated background from Europe and the blacks from a traditional “African rural” background with no “first world” skills.
Many people believed that the ANC should have rather gone the “class” route as apposed to the “racial” route when they implemented Affirmative Action. Why? Because there were Blacks, Indians and Coloured people who had the skills to TRULY qualify for a skilled job and who would have been able to handle the position well and they should have been given the opportunity to enter this type of job ahead of a white individual. Go to this link to read more about it:
http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2228
The mistake the ANC made was to go the “racial” route! Now we have a enormous problem on our hands and once again they want to blame Apartheid for this instead of admitting that they threw the unskilled blacks into the deep end and said: “Sink or swim!” and of course the majority sank. To try and understand the enormity of the situation and the absolutely rediculous position we are in at present, go to this link:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?newslett=1&click_id=79&art_id=vn20080827060000370C991228&set_id=1
So to answer your question Relax Max:
“No, the goals have not been met (they were not well thought out goals anyway and were set too high to achieve) and although a lot of blacks have moved upward in the employment ranks and are earning huge salaries, they are not efficient or effective in their posts as they were given their positions because of their colour not their skills.”
“The majority of the whites still have a good standard of living compared to the lower “class” black people, but the young white people have to seek employment overseas as they have limited opportunities in South Africa.”
So to conclude, Affirmative Action did not succeed in South Africa and should now be phased out and people should be employed on merit, not colour! There are thousands of vacant positions in government and municipal offices waiting to be filled, therefore if white skilled individuals qualify for the jobs they should be employed urgently!
When the ship is sinking (like we are) then differences should be set aside to save the ship and action should be taken to correct the position.
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AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN SOUTH AFRICA DEBATE TO PHASE OUT August 22, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News, Uncategorized.Tags: , affirmative action, whites
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Good news for white South Africans!!!
The ANC has opened the door to a debate on whether a sunset clause should apply to affirmative action, after Kgalema Motlanthe, the new minister in the presidency, announced that the government would consider phasing out the programme. (Ref: The Business Report.)
The affirmative action policy was set in 1998, when labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana piloted the Employment Equity Act through parliament. The act sets targets for companies to meet so that their workforces become demographically representative.
It has been welcomed by the Afrikanerbond as well as by the most strident supporter of the programme, Jimmy Manyi, the employment equity commission chairman and Black Management Forum president.
A clearly pleased Solidarity yesterday said the union had been in talks with ANC president Jacob Zuma and his deputy Motlanthe - both before and after the watershed Polokwane conference last December - to shift the ground on affirmative action. Motlanthe had suggested that a joint ANC-Solidarity task team should discuss the matter, the trade union reported.
The union (Solidarity) argues that a moratorium should be placed on affirmative appointments in scarce and critical positions, and that young people should be exempted.
The Afrikanerbond said that Afrikaners are flowing out of the country while jobs are deliberately kept vacant in all spheres of the government. While Dirk Hermann declared “the end of the Jimmy Manyi era” and a sign of a new willingness of the government to engage, Manyi said Hermann had misinterpreted or misunderstood the issues involved.
Motlanthe had specifically referred to taking into account scientific considerations, noted Manyi. In this context, he pointed out that in top management positions blacks held about 20 percent of the posts - far off the 87 percent target set in terms of equity legislation.
Once the targets for designated groups - women, coloureds, Indians, Africans and the disabled - were met, the need for legislative teeth would fall away, Manyi said.
Thus he had no difficulty with the statement by Motlanthe, who said: “Perhaps if we take an approach in an objective and scientific way, we can then have a way of phasing it [affirmative action] out rather than say, ‘Let’s do away with it.’ You may find that we do away with it prematurely and settle with a problem.”
The time is long overdue to end this type of discrimination, especially to those born after the Apartheid era, why must we lose our young people to overseas destinations when there is such a shortage of engineers, scientists, etc in our country.
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