Claim:Our capability to attract foreign skills is in fact the lowest in the world.
I disagree with that claim, somewhere like Zim would be even lower. But thats not to say we attract foreign skilled people. With BEE and government corruption awarding jobs to a select few companies, there are a few skill types interested in coming to SA. Also, the number of people coming to SA say nothing about their skills. A huge problem with SA is that the important skills are leaving the country. Eskom is a fine example of it. With the load shedding, construction companies now have their hands tied to when and what they can build. It's losing money. Overseas are actually offering free citizenship to such skills. It's far to tempting to leave a non-profit situation to a profitable one.
The quality of our education is not only low, in many instances it is the lowest in the world… literacy rates of grade 4 pupils indicates South Africa is among the worst in the world.
I agree with this statement. The problem is not the literacy rate of grade 4, it's the literacy rate of an 18 year old. It's becoming increasingly popular to drop out of school.
A quarter of South Africa's population lives on grants - the highest in the world. And this massive spending without saving fuels inflation.
Can't constructively comment on this because I know nothing on the topic
All of the analysts in London we spoke to are convinced that we are under-selling ourselves. They all agree South Africans overseas and here have reason to be much more upbeat about the country and the economy.
They of course don't sit through 4 hour power cuts. It's completely silly for a analyst in london to comment on the moral standings of SA. Sure, to them R9 a lt of petrol is cheap, but here is SA we earn alot less than them. When your petrol costs go up by over R500 in 4 months, moral takes hit. On a side note, he's right that we *should* be more upbeat to encourage people to come here but thats the only reason.
In South Africa the rich have become richer and the poor poorer.
I agree 100%, the resent interest hikes show this. The cost of a house has to come down or else no-one will by because the interest will kill them. Houses drop so that they become affordable to someone on a loan, but those very rich people who dont need loans can now buy that house (coz it's cheaper) in 1 payment, then rent it out. Asset values and rent increase his wealth. BEE also is a "rich get richer". This is a global problem.
"while the incomes of the poor have risen slower than the incomes of the rich"
Buy the poor are exploited. Example, chicken at the shop costs R30, but in the poor areas they sell for R45, why? because the taxi fair to the shop and back is R24 now, it's cheaper to buy the overpriced chicken. Also, the incomes of the rich are less than those of the poor, well, thats because the rich dont need more "income", they need more "investment", i'm sure if took asset values into the equations, you'd find the richer people have doubled their net worth. Income means nothing to the rich womans world.
Our HIV/Aids infection rate is the highest in the world.
I'm not sure on this, getting stats on aids rates is a hard thing to do, do you REALLY believe the CIA about the stats on Zim? I dont.
"China have just overtaken South Africa’s number of HIV positive people"
Thats no surprise, considering that chinas has more population. You need a per capita for a better comparison.
Our crime is the worst in the world.
There is no doubt its very high here. A big issue I have with these stats is that the police are the criminals. Taking bribes, "losing" case files. Also SA lying about it's crime rates, our government has long denied there being crime, while it happens all around us. South african stats on crime is lower than is really is in my opinion.
South African schools are the most dangerous in the world.
I disagree with this as well.
South Africa’s abortion rate amongst the highest in the world.
The comment on this is misleading. "The Star reported this week that 50% of pregnancies end up in abortion" is obviously way to high, this doesn't mean we have the lowest rate. Fact is that SA is very relaxed on it's abortion rules as well as easy going for illegal abortions, or abortions by traditional healers. This all contributes that SA has a high abortion rate. But this topic isnt a SA issue is it? it's purely a topical human rights issue case per case, says nothing about SA other than there is a lot of unprotected sex going on.
So don’t believe everything you read, you may end up making the wrong choices. Take the enemy on – demand the truth!
which includes that article itself. But how do you know the truth? Arms deals, disbanding the scorpions, corruption trials demanding certain papers not be used. Government says there is no crime yet your priest was shot and killed a month ago for no reason.
How do I see it? SA is in a worse state than 10 years ago. Compare SA to SA and you find that it's falling short of it's best and keeps on dropping. There is hope though, 2010. Tons of money is spent on 2010, huge debt. But then after 2010? Personally I believe 2010 will make or break SA.
