Nobody was sure how it all started. Thandi was away in Brussels at the time and the Girls Club was thus reduced to three. First Rosy was seen giving Norma a tongue lashing causing Norma’s beautiful features to crumble into tearful submission. Next Rosy was seen scolding the gorgeous Kendall reducing her also to a sobbing wreck. Pop-Up Parties ceased, the Girl’s Club Wednesday meetings ceased and the members were seldom, if ever, seen in the Village together. What caused this disintegration of formerly fun-loving friends was a mystery to the Villagers who now missed the Pop-Up Parties.

 

There was a common denominator for the cause of this disintegration and it appeared to be Rosy.  Rosy was the one causing the Girls Club to slowly fall apart.  It was only after careful scrutiny that this could be seen as it went unnoticed by the Villagers.

 

Rosy lived a peachy life. Her daily routine included lunching with the Colonel or whoever was available, consuming a bottle or two of wine then waiting for the evening get-togethers.

 

On the early evenings when the Girls Club got together, Rosy was often already well on her way.  Norma and Kendall would arrive after a long day at the office, looking forward to a few glasses of wine to relax.  Low and behold, Rosy would then have a go at either Norma or Kendall – usually Kendall – about issues in their personal lives.  They would be told to ‘suck it up’ and ‘to get a life’.  So as time passed, a distance grew between the girls – especially for Kendall.  Kendall didn’t live in the village, so she tended to be seen less and less – this was her excuse for not being around as often, but there was more to it.

 

With Thandi still in Brussels, Kendall felt she no longer belonged to the Girls Club and felt alienated.  Thandi and Kendall had a very close friendship, regardless of the distance between them.  Kendall at one stage could confide in Norma about certain personal issues but Kendall no longer trusted Rosy.  Norma and Rosy still met up often as they both lived in the village, meeting at the Sizzling Steak. However, Kendall was the only one who had the daunting task of driving home after a few glasses of wine.

 

Another issue that came to the fore, albeit a small issue but an issue nonetheless, was that Kendall no longer picked up and dropped off the girls when going for drinks outside the Village.  Rosy had to take on this task which she clearly didn’t appreciate the responsibility.  Thus the tension still remained between Rosy and Kendall.

 

On the night of Rosy scolding Kendall, Kendall surprisingly retaliated and told Rosy to ‘suck up’ her own issues. Clearly Rosy didn’t like this, for a change someone was telling Rosy her fortune and she was getting a taste of her own medicine.  The rift within the Girls Club was growing.

 

Kendall noticed that she no longer received text messages, especially from Rosy, to include her in lunches and get-togethers.  Kendall knew all this was going on but she had other friends in the village. This saddened Kendall at first, but she then realized that she really didn’t need friends like that, that were being two-faced.  Norma & Rosy seemed to still have a connection, perhaps it was Rosy poisoning Norma’s mind.  We wonder how long this will last, perhaps forever as these were the trysts of the faulty Villagers.

 

So Kendall was not too perturbed when she met her billionaire Australian wine farmer – she was swept off her feet – at last she had found love & happiness.  She would form her own Girls Club in the winelands of her new country of abode.

 

Thandi will always be the gracious, beautiful lady she is.  She will be in whatever country her family needs her to be in, her duties as a wife and mother being fulfilled to the utmost.  She will be true and honest to her friends, even if at times some have taken advantage of her and given her incorrect information.  Her days of being part of the Girls Club are numbered, Brussels calls once again.

 

 

Norma’s future is still uncertain.  As sexy and outgoing as she is, she still cannot decide whether she wants to settle down with one man – there is too much excitement in hunting down the men in the rainbow nation that we live in.

 

As for Rosy, she will live out her life wanting to know everyone’s business and putting in her few cents worth.  She will still talk about throwing Pop-Up Parties but seldom will one actually transpire.  As long as she can appear in the local newspaper once in a while, for whatever reason, she will carry on her daily trysts.

 

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‘It has begun’ said Johan throwing copies of ‘The Economist’, ‘The Financial Times’ and ‘The Telegraph’ onto the table in front of Jacques at Dreamers. ‘Your mate over in London is mobilizing the Foreign Press on Zuma’s criminal charges issue. I don’t get the New York Times but I am sure they will pick up on the story from the ‘The Telegraph’. The follow-up story will probably introduce the Chinese involvement which is of immense interest to the American readers’.

 

‘I love it when a plan comes together’ said Jacques smiling and shaking his co-conspirator’s hand.

 

 

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‘Mr Zuma has failed to tackle the scourge of corruption. The ANC under his aegis has sought to undermine the independence of the courts, the police, the prosecuting authorities and the press. It has conflated the interests of party and state, dishing out contracts for public works as rewards for loyalty—hence the bitter jest that the government is in hock to ‘tenderpreneurs’. This has reduced economic competitiveness and bolstered fabulously rich black elite. As a result, too little wealth trickles down’.

 

The Economist also offers some advice to improve integrity and bring about change, including the disposal of the president. ‘One of the parliament’s worst features is its party-list method of choosing members, who are thus entirely in thrall to ANC bosses rather than to the voters: a constituency-based system would make them more accountable’.

 

Although the ANC still has no obvious alternative leader, the party should look to chuck out Mr Zuma when it holds the next party election though pollsters consider that unlikely’.

 

The publication also states that South Africa needs political competition. ‘The best hope for the country in years to come is a real split in the ANC between the populist left and the fat-cat right to offer a genuine choice for voters. Until that happens, South Africa is doomed to go down as the rest of Africa goes up’.

 

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Financial Times

May 4, 2014 12:10 pm

S Africa’s stuttering economy adds to gloom in run-up to election

By Andrew England in Johannesburg

‘The International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 6.5 per cent for Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa this year. But it has revised downwards its estimate for South Africa from 2.8 per cent to 2.3 per cent, which compares to growth of 1.9 per cent in 2013.

Mr Zuma defends his record by pointing out that he took office in 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis. South Africa – the African nation most exposed to global trade and one of the most liquid and traded emerging markets – slumped into a recession that year that cost 1,0m jobs.

But Mr Zuma’s first term has been characterized by complaints over policy indecision, coupled with concerns that corruption and cronyism are on the rise.

Under his watch, labor relations are perceived to have become more volatile and rating agencies have downgraded South Africa. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have the country on negative outlook and rating agencies will be watching the elections and the composition of the next government closely.

Last month, Moody’s cited strike-related business losses, high unemployment and wide income disparities as “credit challenges” for the country.

In December, S&P warned it could lower South Africa’s ratings if the business and investment climate weakens further, for instance if labor disputes escalate again or GDP growth weakens ‘significantly further, or if political tensions rise’.

 

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________________________________________________________

The Telegraph

London

Saturday April 26, 2014

_________________________________________________

‘President Zuma is accused of using £13.8m of public money on home improvements’

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters.

2 of 2

Mr Zuma added a swimming pool, amphitheatre, chicken run to his country home in KwaZulu Natal Marco Longari/Getty Images

Criminal charges of corruption, racketeering, fraud and theft of public money were laid against South Africa’s President yesterday.

Jacob Zuma is accused of using public money to pay for a swimming pool, amphitheater, chicken run and other improvements to Nkandla amounting to R79-million at his country home in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa.

Mr. Zuma was heavily criticized by the country’s corruption watchdog yesterday. Afterwards, two South African opposition parties visited police stations to lodge 12 charges, including corruption and racketeering’.

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The Fourth Pillar said that in his inauguration speech, he had told his future government: ‘We must hold ourselves to the highest standards of service, probity and integrity’.

Instead, he has presided over some of the lowest points in South Africa’s post-apartheid history, shielded corrupt cronies and used his background as the ANC’s intelligence chief to deflect critics.

The conclusion of a public inquiry into the fatal August 2012 shooting of 34 striking miners by police at Marikana has been repeatedly delayed. The poor state of the country’s education system is rarely out of the headlines since 1.7m children in one province were forced to go without textbooks for almost a year because of local government corruption’.

 

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Jacques looked back at Zuma’s time in office and the progress made by the African National Congress since 1994 and found a report by the Fourth Pillar’s Stephan Mulholland that alarmed him. The edited gist of Stephan’s article read: ‘South Africa now employs more staff than the private sector. We now have more people on the State Payroll than the United States of America which has a population six times the size of South Africa’s and a Gross Domestic Product 45 times the size.

 

This occurs while unemployment in the private sector rose.

 

Public service costs in South Africa are proportionately amongst the highest in the world at about 12% of Gross Domestic Product. This compares to Russia 3.7%, Nigeria 4.0%, Ruanda 3.5%, and Egypt 6.9%.

 

And you can bet your bottom dollar that the bulk of the 3,03 million civil servants, making up 22,6% of the South African workforce (most governments 11%) will back to the hilt a ruling party that has created for them the largest gravy train in Africa.

 

In addition, corruption in South Africa has been rampant devouring R30-Bn in public funds a year’. 

 

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Jacques naively thought that this ludicrous state of affairs must surely be grounds for a taxpayers’ march, a taxpayers’ strike or even better,   grounds for a taxpayers’ to withhold their taxes in revolt.

 

He was given the draft of an as yet unpublished book called ‘African Kleptocrats’ in which he read:

 

‘The book deals with the fifty four African countries that have descended into kleptocracies after the departure of the European colonialists. The book traces in detail the attempts at democracy by the worst ten of these post-colonial African countries and how each has descended into a failed state at the hands of black despots. The book follows the history of these foul regimes and the methods used by their kleptocrats to claim national assets for themselves and their despicable elite connections. These criminal acts are always to the detriment and extreme discomfort of the populations of the affected countries’.

 

Muammar Gaddafi             Child soldiers

Mabuto Seseseko                   King Maswati

Robert Mugabe                       Idi Amin

 

That author had concluded ‘The purpose of the book is to alert young South Africans to the danger signs which went unheeded for forty or more years in each of Africa's newly democratised countries. South Africa is well down the same road unless their young people become educated, instil Christian middle class values into their societies and throw off the shackles currently placed on them by the greedy and ignorant post Mandela kleptocrats.

 

Jacques went on to read from a book by the same author called Stepping Stones:

 

‘Kleptocracy derives from the Greek words kleptes, meaning ‘thief’, and kratos, meaning ‘rule’. It is a word used to describe a government widely engaged in corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of individuals in the ruling class.

 

A corrupt and dishonest government, characterised by greed, is described as kleptocratic. Such a government is typically run by rulers who are thieves and who pillage public funds to the detriment of the poor, sometimes without the pretence of offering any form of honest public service.

 

These kleptocrats then exploit a country’s natural resources for their own greedy benefit.

 

The money on which these evil managers of men prey is almost always funds earmarked for the building of public amenities, schools, hospitals, roads, parks and public facilities. Thus the ordinary citizen is prejudiced, inconvenienced and deprived by these selfish kleptocrats.

 

The term ‘kleptocrat’ was first used in the 1960s to describe the activities of the ruler of the independent Congo, Colonel Joseph Mobutu Seseseko, who plundered the rich natural resources of that country for his personal benefit.

However, the term could equally have applied to his colonial predecessor, King Leopold II of Belgium. It is said that the megacity of Brussels, a European Union bastion, was built with the kleptocratic proceeds of the resources of the Congo Basin.

 

The story of Africa is one of the Europeans plundering the natural resources of the continent and then, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, hastily effecting a democratic handover to the most likely African kleptocrat’.

 

‘Same circus, different tent’ thought Jacques as he pondered the new wave of colonialism. This time the rape of Africa was being perpetrated by China.

 

Jacques was curious why King Zwelithini had mentioned the Fujian Province in many of his speeches and initiatives. He remembered from his earlier research that a report that he had once read, on the illegal influx of Chinese immigrants to South Africa, had mysteriously dis