Then most of us are waiting with bated breath to hear whether we are going to be “grey-listed” by FATF (Financial Action Task Force) on Friday. Already South Africa’s rand experienced the worst start to the year in over a decade, making it one of the poorest-performing currencies in the world. Grey-listing could properly sink us.
UCT is still making lots of news.
Mamokgethi Phakeng, the Vice Chancellor has been suspended (or not?) and she has not taken that lightly. Accusations, threats and general bad behaviour is what we have come to expect from her and this is what we got when news of her pending suspension was leaked.
On Tuesday finality was reached when she was granted a settlement to leave in Feb next year. She will receive over R12 million.
Then also at UCT like at other universities, the SRC said thousands of students were unable to register due to historic non payment of fees and that was one of the reasons why they closed down the campus last week. That illegal campus shut-down was then taken to court by the Council.
The result of that court action is that the SRC has been served with a severe restraining order from the High Court. They must immediately desist from intimidating students and a raft of other strict conditions was laid own in a judgement delivered late last week.
Now some very good news. Cape Town is flourishing. There is a busy central district getting bigger by the day with tons of development everywhere. The bright, young mayor of our city is talking of accommodating 10 million within the next generation and he and his council are working hard to develop more and more infrastructure to accommodate the massive growth.
Also the mayor is determined to get rid of the vagrants who use the city centre illegally for sleeping and.......and he has obtained a court order to have them moved to places that the city has determined. That's good news and a good start on a serious problem .
I have had two fascinating coffee catch ups this week. Michael & Ilana were staying in Stellenbosch for a couple of days and they again invited us --the world champion was with me-- for lunch on Sunday. A couple of weeks ago we met with them at Glen in Constantia and I had toured with them in my touring days. At my suggestion we shared a true Stellenbosch experience and in Church Street we had lunch at Java Cafe. There we met up with their cousins, Geoff and Denese, from Toronto, whom I also knew from our touring and previous visits (Yes they are all expats).
The place was buzzing with students and tourists and the background noise added to the atmosphere of our time together; just chatting away and getting to know more about very bright interesting people and their families.
Then on Monday I met with Hannes who owns the blog ‘Africa Unauthorised’ where this weekly newsletter also regularly appears. Hannes has recruited a small team of writers (one of whom is Hannes himself) and often his own articles appear in the blog. We have met a couple of times before and this time we spoke “Africa”. He has just returned from a month touring with his siblings in Mozambique, where as children they spent wonderful holidays. It is sad to hear how that once beautiful country has been decimated by corruption and poor service delivery. Hannes told me that deforestation has laid waste large parts of the country and the place is now sad and scary. Hannes has authored several books all with an African theme. He is a most interesting fellow. Look up his books on the internet and read what interests you. He is Hannes Wessels and he is English speaking.
This weekend will be a buzz or worse-- a loud noise in Green Point. We are staging a Grand Prix for electric racing cars, an E-race.
Maybe electric cars don't cause much sound but the huge crowd expected will. There has been strong interest in this event that largely goes round the iconic Cape Town Stadium with a 3kl track specially laid out on the roads in that area.
The SA Rugby Board has not yet responded to Israel’s demand for an explanation about the withdrawal, by the SA Rugby Union of the invitation to the Israeli team scheduled to play here in an international club competition after BDS and Africa4Palestine put pressure on the board.
World Rugby prohibits discrimination of any kind, whether race, sex, politics, religion or creed.
The CFO of the Dept. of Tourism has quit his job after being implicated in the intended R1 billion deal with Tottenham Hotspur for an SA logo to be on their match shirts. That was after after the new Board Chairman suspended him last Tuesday.
Football fans will agree that Brandan got it quite right with this cartoon in the Sunday Times:
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