Poultry industry job losses all too real – face it
JEAN Le Palisseur’s letter “To accept poultry tariff costs and quotas is a mistake” (The Mercury, February 16) is riddled with so many inaccuracies and factual errors that it renders any points made simply unbelievable.
There is no “threat of job losses” – this a reality. Following the closure of several poultry farming enterprises and processing facilities, the latest victims are the 1 350 Rainbow employees who have lost their livelihoods. Many more are set to follow across the poultry sector as
Military exhibition right on target
IN THE midst of all the negativity with which we South Africans are constantly bombarded, I would like to commend the South African Military on a truly superb exhibition at the old Durban Drive-in. They have spared nothing in providing the public with an interesting, fun and informative exhibition.
As a critical ex-serviceman, I expected to be disappointed and ashamed by the display by our armed forces. However, I was blown away, not only by the hardware on display, but by the friendly interaction, openness and assistance of the military personnel in attendance.
I was amazed that the public was allowed to touch and handle the weapons and climb on and in all the fighting vehicles.
Both my children thoroughly enjoyed it and are begging me to take them back! I strongly encourage everyone to attend. Well done, SA Armed Forces! CHARLTON BUTT
Durban
Smaller families would ease poverty
AFTER reading Anthony Nelson’s praise singing of Jacob Zuma I am wondering where he has been for the last eight years.
Any reasonable intelligent person can see what a disaster Zuma has been and will continue to be for this country.
I was, however, heartened to see that No 1 acknowledged that population growth has exceeded the national income growth, which of course is the result of the misguided concept of child grants, a muchabused system.
Yet he does not advocate smaller families, which would go a long way to easing poverty.
Zuma talks about the agenda of the National Development Plan, but sadly that is all it has been, a plan. His legacy? Rampant corruption, a government riddled with cronies and cadres, 700-odd corruption charges and a broken economy where businesses are crippled by over-regulation, dubious government policies, hostile government officials and never ending squandering of state resources.
And Nelson had the gall to say, “I firmly believe that the best years lie ahead for South Africa.” Really, I am incredulous! TONY BALL
Pinetown
Most terrorists in world not Muslim
THILLAY Naidoo is clearly a victim of “false news”, propaganda and the right-wing narrative.
Islam as a way of life was adopted by the indigenous people of many countries outside the Arabian Peninsula, such as Malaysia, Indonesia (the largest Muslim country), East, West and North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Asia, the Balkans, many republics of the former Soviet Union and parts of China, without compulsion or so-called “terrorism”.
Islam was also established in Spain for many centuries and found adherents in Corsica.
Islam was accepted as a way of life because it promoted peace, justice and satisfied the soul.
Naidoo reveals his ignorance when he states that “most of the terrorists in the world are Muslim”.
He has clearly not heard of the Animal Liberation Front explicitly designated by the FBI as a “leading domestic terrorist threat’’.
Other terrorist organisations Naidoo would do well to research are Alpha66 and Omega7, Army of God, Aryan Nation, Black Liberation Army, The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, Earth Liberation Front, Jewish Defence League, Ku Klux Klan and Militia Movement.
Naidoo would do well to note that none of the above are Muslim organisations.
The single most horrific terrorist attack in history was the atomic bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by the US.
The ongoing terrorism of the Zionist State of Israel is lost to Naidoo as is the terror inflicted on well as other industries that depend on us for their survival.
These job losses are certainly not “temporary” and to suggest this is extremely callous.
To refer to an apartheid past as a reference point for the current or future duty and tariff regime is completely uninformed.
Far from protectionist, after apartheid collapsed following the birth of our new democracy in 1994, South Africa’s sanctions-era economic model was replaced with a free market that ranks among the civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other countries by the so-called democratic countries of the world.
The terror of bunker bombs, cruise missiles, extra-judicial murder by drones and use of chemical weapons like agent orange and white phosphorous on civilians by state terrorists is also ignored by Naidoo.
If Islam is the evil that Naidoo makes it out to be, it would not be the fastest-growing religion in the world. ASHRAF MATHER Durban
Islamophobia alive and well in Saudi
ONE must note with some amusement that the curse of “Islamophobia” has spread like wildfire from Europe to the US and now to, of all places, Saudi Arabia!
Saudi Arabia has deported a staggering 40 000 Pakistani migrant workers in the span of just four months, citing terrorism concerns.
The Saudi Gazette reported last week that “a number of Pakistanis were held in the crimes of drug trafficking, thefts, forgery and physical assault.”
Authorities feared that some of the migrant workers were linked with Islamic State – or as the Saudis call the terror group, Daesh.
While the Kingdom has long exported the jihadist ideological cancer of Wahhabism to mosques and Islamic centres across the West, it has prided itself in its effort to rid the homeland of terrorists threatening to undermine the stability and sovereignty of the monarchy.
This all begs the question: is Saudi Arabia Islamophobic? Well, if you’re claiming that President Donald Trump’s falsely identified “Muslim ban” (recently rendered unconstitutional by a federal appellate court) is Islamphobic because of the fact that it places a temporary freeze on the acceptance of incoming refuthe most unprotected in the world.
This includes the agriculture sector, rated better than the US, similar to Europe, and only slightly worse than Brazil for production efficiency.
Chicken prices have certainly not more than doubled in a “few years”, nor have they “soared” as Palisseur claims. In fact, poultry prices up until October last year did not increase at all.
Over the last 10 years poultry prices consistently lagged food price inflation. gees from just seven (out of dozens) of the high-risk Muslim-majority countries in the world, then surely Saudi Arabia’s mass deportation of tens of thousands of Muslims due to terrorism concerns should ring some alarm bells.
Is Saudi Arabia immune from the charge of Islamophobia because its leaders are Muslim?
Or, better yet, is the liberal left’s entire hysterical crusade against Trump’s “Islamophobia” a red herring meant to delegitimise the political opposition?
The bottom line is that every sovereign state, whether it be Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the United States, has a right to defend its borders and regulate who comes into the country.
Every sovereign state has a right, perhaps even a duty, to protect its citizens against foreign threats, particularly terrorist threats. J AMALDEV Winkelspruit
A case worth investigating
REGARDING all the furore currently of a number of international and three local banks colluding and manipulating the ZAR/$ exchange rate, I would like the Competition Commission to investigate what I believe to be another forex scandal in the making.
Remember December 2015, when our commander-in-chief suddenly felt the need to fire our respected finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and replace him with little-known lawmaker Des van Rooyen, thereby triggering the rand’s biggest decline in more than four years.
Everyone knows that,primarily, this was a desperate attempt by Zuma to get his hands on the Treasury.
But just suppose that there was a more sinister motivation, a getrich-quick scheme, formulated by the Guptas and acted upon by their best mate, the president of South
The SA poultry sector is far from “monopolistic”. There are small, medium and large-scale producers, growers, hatcheries, feed and equipment suppliers and related industries which collectively are responsible for the employment of 130 000 people.
As most of South Africa’s major producers are publicly listed companies, their accounts are an open book.
Contrast this with the real “poultry moguls”, a handful of private white-owned importers whose Africa. Both parties knew exactly how negatively international traders and the rand would react to this news, and I am betting that they acted upon this before the incident.
Everyone, including the ANC national executive committee, was caught off guard by this inane and disastrous act. Zuma did not discuss his decision with any governing body.
I am also betting that he knew he wouldn’t get away with it for long and would be compelled to replace Van Rooyen with a more respectable person.
Perhaps the Guptas and the Zumas caught the forex change again, in the opposite direction, four days later?
Who knows, my flights of fancy or a president’s treasonous act? Either way, I believe it is a case worth investigating. BLAISE ATKINSON
Durban
A call to focus energy on studies
I SEE the repeat of the 2015 xenophobic attacks that shook our country.
These past few days we’ve seen what has happened in Rosettenville. Now there’s a huge march being organised in the Pretoria CBD.
I fail to understand why we accuse black Africans of everything immoral. The Chinese and whites here in SA are known for being drug kingpins and brothel owners. Did you hear of them being accused, assaulted or murdered? I haven’t.
Here in the townships we accuse our African counterparts of stealing our jobs,women, businesses and houses.Why didn’t we think of starting up those businesses before?
Very few ordinary SA citizens can work as builders, electricians or plumbers etc. Therefore we accuse foreigners of stealing our jobs. It is not your job until you are hired and you cannot be hired if you don’t have the necessary skills. collective 560 000 tonnes of imports last year, including dumped bone-in portions, dwarf the production of our single biggest producer.
The only question remaining here is why Le Palisseur would write such unadulterated manufactured truth and who he represents, for it is certainly not the South African consumer, workers or industries that depend on fair trade and an even playing field for their survival. KEVIN LOVELL SAPA CEO
These foreigners contribute to the country’s GDP.
All I see is a lazy community that expects freebies from the government just because their elders fought for “democracy” – a community that loves fancy living but doesn’t want to work for it or strive to achieve it.
I call for our brothers and sisters to focus their energy on studying and/or acquiring working skills and to work hard. To make use of the opportunities the government has for them and leave the issue of foreigners to Home Affairs and relevant office bearers. ITUMELENG V MATJILA
White City Jabavu
Dlamini wary of Gordhan’s prying
SOCIAL Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has grown too comfortable in her role as minister and as head of the ANC Women’s League. She has totally messed up the SA Social Security Agency issue, as has been pointed out quite clearly by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Naturally, she would not care to listen to that minister because she sees him as a spider keeping an eye on the potential web of deceit that surrounds the ANC puppets.
She seems to be trying her best to emulate her boss Jacob Zuma by causing chaos by procrastinating and almost forcing another round in the Cash Paymaster Services contract debacle.
Just like her boss, she wants to defy the Constitutional Court by just carrying on in a state of oblivion.
One can only feel sorry for Gordhan, who appears to be one of the only ministers trying to keep the government ship steady.
No wonder Zuma and the rest of the cabinet do not appreciate his efforts. ROBERT BRADFIELD Brackendowns