STRAIGHT TALK
MARK BARNES: Government holds the thread to start stitching together a more equal SA
A stitch in time saves nine, the proverb goes. But what if we don’t heed it? What if we need 10 stitches and we’ve already run out of cotton? I did quite a bit of flying last week. I don’t enjoy it, even when I do get the occasional lucky upgrade. On an early morning flight from Cape Town to Durban I looked out over the wing. It was an old wing. I could tell — a few more rivets here and there. Many aircraft in service are more than 20 years old, particularly those used on long-haul flights, because they go through fewer pressurisation cycles.I read with dismay that Johannesburg was going to be without electricity for 33 hours at the weekend. This time it’s not due to load shedding but cable theft. What with commodity prices up where they are and the weaker rand … The truth is that vandalism and anarchy have already taken hold of Johannesburg’s inner city. Thugs rule when law and order stands aside. We have to come up with an investable grand plan that attracts foreign domestic inves...
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