What's positive about SA?
2010-05-10 07:55
There are two fellows called Haw and Inglis to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. In a nutshell they showed me that there are actually a lot of positive things going on in this country.
I have no idea whether there actually is a bloke called Haw who has a partner called Inglis but I do know that they are a construction company specialising civil and road construction.
And they recently gave South Africa in general and Cape Town in particular, a lesson in how to get things done.
This was the company that was given the job of sorting out that freeway nightmare called Hospital Bend in Cape Town. It was a real spaghetti junction that involved cars and taxis having to criss-cross all over the place and subsequently responsible for all manner of absolutely horrendous accidents.
When it was announced that a massive new interchange would be built the whole of Cape Town threw its hands in the air and said; "here we go again, months if not years of traffic snarl-up's, filthy construction sites and typical third world over-expenditure and delays." It was a horrible prospect.
But, now its finished. Its brilliant. It works. It was finished on time and on budget. And the disruption to traffic, even at the height of rush hour, was minimal. And everywhere they worked, construction sites were impeccably clean and tidy.
With the result that messrs Haw & Inglis are the toast of Cape Town. But, most of all they proved that some South Africans can get something right and produce world class standards.
The same goes for all those construction companies that proved all the critics wrong about not being able to finish the world cup stadiums in time.
And talking about the World Cup, I reckon this is the time for all of us to be positive. Yes, I know I will be inundated with e-mails and comments from people telling me to get my head out of the sand and look at the crime, the corruption and everything that is wrong and dragging this country down into the depths of third world doldrums.
Maybe so, but I reckon that there needs to be a balance and occasionally we need to look at what is great about this country.
For instance, here some are some facts I dug up from the internet recently:
- "South Africa is probably the leading economy in the world." (CNBC Europe)
- South Africa’s Rand is the second best-performing emerging market currency of the 26 monitored by Bloomberg in 2009.
- South Africa sold $1.8bn worth of cars to the US last year, putting us ahead of Sweden and Italy as suppliers to the US market.
- The International Monetary Forum's World Economic Outlook ranks us in the top 10% of countries in respect of Real GDP Growth Projections for 2010.
- In the Economist Intelligence Unit's Survey of Democratic Freedom we rank 31st of of 184 countries.
- South Africa ranks second worldwide in terms of the transparency surrounding its budgets - just behind the United Kingdom, tie with France, and ahead of New Zealand and the United States - according to the Open Budget Index.
- Johannesburg ranks 2nd among countries from Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa in dealing with urbanisation and environmental challenges, in the MasterCard Insights Report on Urbanisation and Environmental Challenges.
- South Africa was ranked as the 18th most attractive destination for Foreign Direct Investment by global strategic management consulting firm AT Kearney.
- Three South African cities were voted amongst the world's top 100 Most Liveable Cities in a study conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Cape Town was ranked in 85th place, Johannesburg 90th and Port Elizabeth 97th.
- Since the 1940s, South African golfers have won more golf majors than any other nation, apart from the United States.
- Johannesburg has been ranked as the eighth cheapest city in the world for expatriates, according to the most recent Cost of Living Standards Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
- South Africa is ranked 20th out of a total of 128 economies in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2007, ahead of many developed nations, including, the United States (31), Switzerland (40), Austria (27) and France (51).
- The black middle class grew by 30% in 2005, adding another 421 000 black adults to SA's middle-income layer and ramping up the black population's share of SA's total middle class to almost a third, according to the Financial Mail. Between 2001 and 2004, there were 300 000 new black entrants to the middle class.
- South Africa is ranked 35th out of 178 countries for ease of doing business - ahead of Spain, Brazil and India
- Home ownership in SA has increased from 64% (5.12m households) in 1994 to 78% (7.9m households) in 2006, according to a South African Advertising Research Foundation development index
- South Africa accounts for almost 45% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy three times the size of the second biggest (Egypt).
The list goes on and on and on. If you want more go to a website run by a friend of mine called Steuart Pennington. It's called http://www.sagoodnews.co.za. It's worth a visit especially if your are an Afro-pessimist who just can't see anything good about this country.
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