Despair at ANC idiocies

I have a weak heart to start with, but when I heard Enoch Godongwana, chairman of the ANC’s subcommittee on economic transformation, declaring that they “are yet to understand the full implications of junk status”, I ended up with palpitations and a mild heart attack.

If this guy, who is exposed to and has some knowledge of the financial markets locally and internationally, can make a profound statement like this, small wonder so many of the president’s praise singers came up with idiotic statements like “now we can celebrate that we are free from western interference” and “the rand can fall and we will pick it up” and “who really cares? Many South Africans don’t have millions in the stock exchange”, or the statement by the scion of the president declaring, “I am going to celebrate this downgrading decision by opening a champagne.”

Small wonder we have been downgraded to junk when the president appointed all these economic illiterates to key positions running our country into the ground as their only interest is in feathering their own nests and protecting Number One as he is their meal ticket.

But wait, their days and the president’s are numbered and there is a groundswell of the public saying enough is enough. It’s still very early days for the downgrade to have its full effect, but when the petrol price soars and other prices start rising, so will inflation and strikes will be a daily occurrence. Then the bright sparks who run the ANC will realise that the only way for the country to succeed is to wake up to the reality that scaring off investors was a colossal mistake.

Unfortunately, it takes years to get back to an investment grade.

JM Bouvier

Bryanston