I was very interested to read an article about a speech Jacob Zuma gave shortly after the firing of Nene. During this speech, amongst some of his howlers, he announced that Africa is the biggest continent in the world – which it isn’t – Asia is. He also said “All continents put together will fit into Africa.” That is quite an amazing statement by a President, so clearly out of depth in the job he holds. 

He also said he is not a businessman or a professor, but that he rebels against the idea that “what determines the value of a commodity is the law of supply and demand.” He says that what should determine what something cost is not supply and demand but how much time it takes to make the thing. He said that South Africa still needs a struggle for economic freedom saying that “If they have the economic power and you hold the political power, you are going to dance to their music.” His shocking decision to fire the Minister of Finance, compounded by him replacing his appointee, who had no experience, a few days later, shows you what a farce the current government is becoming. No doubt at a later stage, when maize prices and petrol go up, we will be told that somebody else is to blame for all of this and the government has no control over the value of the Rand. To an extent that is true, but of course they very much influence the direction that it goes in, and by making bizarre and strange decisions and giving such weird speeches and saying such bizarre things, you hardly encourage foreign investment in your country. 

When investors pull their money out, the Rand weakens and when the Rand weakens, South Africans will pay more for petrol and maize and they will see food prices increase. We should all just be so grateful right now that oil prices are at international lows because if it were to go up back to where it was two years ago, we will really see problems. Maybe it will not go up – when it is down, people always say it will never go up again, but that has certainly not been the history of the oil price.