Readers’ Views
Just missed out on Verwoerd stabbing
BRUCE Whitfield pointed out in “Another legacy of squandered promise” (September 4) that something significant happened this week 50 years ago. I agree.
I was on a Union-Castle mail ship in Cape Town waiting to go to England. It took a couple of days to load. A friend of mine, Martin Prozesky, phoned me from shore. He was due to join the same ship to go to the same university as me (he subsequently became professor of theology at Pietermaritzburg university).
He said: “What do you want to do tomorrow?” I said: “I don’t know, I don’t know Cape Town.” He said: “Well, let’s go to parliament.” I said: “Great.” He said: “Well, nothing ever happens at two o’ clock. Let’s go at three.”
We met by agreement in the Gardens behind parliament and wandered round to the front at three. There was pandemonium. Verwoerd had been stabbed at 2.15.
For 50 years, I’ve lived with the adage that nothing ever happens at two o’clock . . . — Tim Couzens, Johannesburg
Local firms to blame for chicken woes
I REFER to recent articles that “cheap chicken imports” are said to be devastating local poultry companies.
How is it remotely possible to import chicken from the EU, the US and Brazil that sells in South Africa for less than the local producer price?
These imports are subjected to a weak currency, import duties and the costs of freight, clearing, cartage, insurance, port handling and more.
With such heavy costs added to the price of the imported poultry, it should be impossible to land those products in this country at a lower cost than equivalent local production.
Our producers should interrogate their own businesses to find the real cause of their woes, and stop blaming imports, which are only a small percentage of local consumption.
Another issue worth mentioning is that local producers increase their margins by the addition of brine to their frozen poultry, which poultry importers do not. — David Wolpert, CEO, Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of South Africa
SO South Africa’s total poultry meat production is about 24 800 tons per week — 297 600 tons per year, according to “Brine battle: R2bn worth of chicken pieces at risk” (September 4). Tons of product, not the lives of chickens — many millions of lives. How many? I hear no plaintive chirp. Disgusting, don’t you think? — Rod Hooper-Box, Bathurst
Parties be damned: give us good leaders
THE media must constantly use Sipho Pityana as an example of what type of leader South Africa prefers: someone who is young, smart, welleducated, knowledgeable about the economy, streetwise and respected, as reported in “Business missed its chance to oust Zuma” (September 4).
I do not care whether the DA or the ANC leads . . . I am interested in quality leadership.
The Pityanas of this world will turn the perspective and perception of this ill-managed country around in record time. — Thinus Botha, by e-mail