WHY OUR PARADISE IS MORE FOOLISH THAN REAL In his weekly column OUT TO LUNCH in the Sunday Times of April the 2nd, 2006, David Bullard describes the state South Africa finds itself in at the moment and does so under the caption, Why our paradise is more foolish than real.
He states that the reader may have heard the term, living in a fool’s paradise, which refers to living in a state of delusory happiness. He then asserts that that indeed aptly describes the state South Africa finds itself in at the moment.
He says that we kid ourselves that we are experiencing a major economic
boom since, says he, it’s all due to smoke and mirrors that this perception seems real.
He has some critical
comments on property
prices and car prices and the lack of new roads, but of profound importance are his valid comments on the state of corruption, an issue regarding which he shoots from the hip. In that regard he asserts that although our government claims to stand for integrity and swears to weed out corruption, according to the auditor-general, 14 Cabinet
ministers and deputy ministers, and 1 678 provincial ministers and senior public service managers have, as Bullard put it, failed to disclose the pies in which they had their grubby little fingers. He states that if it’s true, then this is larceny on a grand scale, but hardly surprising in a country in which the deputy president referred to the late Brett Kebble as a great South African and in which the venal members of the ANC Youth League drive around in luxury cars, paid for by the great Brett Kebble.
Bullard concludes with a warning by saying that the economic boom is nothing more than a chimera that is designed to deflect attention from the pilfering and personal enrichment perpetrated in the government and the nationalized industries, at our long-term expense.
Coen van Wyk
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