OUT TO LUNCH
In a perverse way South Africa has a distinct advantage over most of our global trading partners. As harsh as the after effects of COVID-19 will prove to be on all the world’s economies, South Africa was well on it’s way to economic collapse long before the Wuhan bat soup (or whatever it was that kick-started this dystopian nightmare) was even a blip on the Apocalyptic Early Warning radar.
Our down grading to junk was a given after we finally gave the middle finger to those suggesting that this unusually benevolent ratings agency was giving a three year period of grace for us to get our act together. But we stumbled along, buffoons that we are, pumping money into loss making state owned money-holes, plundering the fiscus and paying an over-bloated civil service salaries that were way ahead of anything they could hope to earn in the private sector.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if those fat salaries had attracted the top brains in the country but they didn’t. All they did was attract entitled ANC cadres who quickly realized that they could get a fancy title, get a fancy car, get a fancy office and do as little work as they felt liked doing but still get paid the same.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Plus there would be perks like overseeing tenders to build roads and schools and then making sure that someone in your close family who had never built a road or a school could scramble around to form a Pty company and submit the winning tender.