Goeie genugtig - The end is nigh?!

Adding insult on top of injury. The Mail & Guardian reports that an ANC front company, Chancelor house, has a huge stake in the build of new power stations that is now planned.

Chancellor House’s 25% stake in Hitachi Power Africa, which will perform 60% of the contract, translates to about R2,8-billion of the R18,5-billion total value. Coming on top of its R3-billion stake in the Medupi contract, this almost doubles the ANC company’s known stake in Eskom’s capacity expansion programme to about R5,8-billion. How much of this will be profit is not known.

In another report it was claimed that some mines are already planing job cuts as a result of the power loss induced closures.

And just to make sure we spread the doom with the gloom, a Finweek report claims an educational crisis is at hand. And it's getting worse, not better.

For the past 16 years, fewer than 7% of Senior Certificate candidates passed higher-grade maths, according to a 2007 Centre for Development Enterprises survey on maths and science in schools. But in 2006, only 4,8% passed higher-grade maths, and only 5,7% passed higher-grade science, Finweek's report says.

The prognosis for the matric classes of 2010 and 2011 is not much better.

When the class of 2010 (now in grade 10) was in grade three in 2001, the national survey of performance showed that 30% did not achieve the required standard in numeracy, and 54% did not achieve the required standard in literacy.

For the class of 2011, the 2005 grade-six evaluation showed that only 28% performed at the required standard in numeracy. For literacy, it was only 38%.

In addition to the education crisis, South Africa is losing skilled professionals to other countries that use South Africa as a hunting ground for recruitment, says Finweek. A study recently found that the loss of one skilled professional in South Africa costs up to 10 unskilled jobs.

Then theres a report of a water contamination crisis. According the Mail & Guardian the report is the latest of several recent indicators that the government is no longer able to monitor effectively and manage its vast infrastructure of dams, pipes, pumps and treatment facilities.

Adding to the stink is this report of sewerage flowing into Durban harbour.

And in another Mail & Guardian report, refugees arrested inside the Johannesburg Methodist Church, have claimed that they have been mistreated, denied medical treatment and bribed by police.

Never mind all this says Xolela Mangcu. The intolerance the ANC is now showing to the Mbeki backers within the party is the real bell weather of the problems our country if facing.

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