/ɛrkæns/ retweeted
When it comes to the @Springboks we are definitely not in the dwaaang. 💚💛🇿🇦
/ɛrkæns/ retweeted
[WATCH] THE ANC IS SELF INTROSPECTING
The people of South Africa have spoken. As the ANC we have heard that my people. We recognise that many South Africans who once placed their confidence in the ANC have chosen to support other parties. Others have withdrawn from electoral participation altogether. We recognise their concerns, we will not question their judgement or explain away their decisions.
We will confront the reasons why people who
once regarded the ANC as their natural
political home have become disillusioned with our movement. We must acknowledge that in too many communities local government has fallen short of the expectations of our people.
Where communities have experienced unreliable water supplies, failing infrastructure, uncollected refuse, deteriorating roads, corruption and poor municipal administration, they have every right to demand better.
Where public representatives have become distant from the people they were elected to
serve, the people have every right to hold them accountable. And where our own internal divisions have distracted us from the needs of communities, we must accept responsibility.
We cannot ask the people to trust us merely because of our history. Our history gives us a responsibility to serve. It does not give us an entitlement to govern. The ANC must earn the confidence of the people through what it does today and what it delivers tomorrow. That is the lesson of these elections. And it is a lesson we accept with humility.
/ɛrkæns/ retweeted
Today, Sunday, November 8th I'm playing at Centurion Shisanyama with these gents .. of course, I'll be bringing merch to sell as well. I should be there around 6pm ..
see you later
/ɛrkæns/ retweeted
“Our people” just filed for divorce.
Every election season, a familiar chorus starts up. Parties on every side of the spectrum step to the mic and declare, with impressive confidence, that their people will deliver the victory. Black people. White people. Coloured people. Indian people. Religious People. Rural people. Kasi people. The list is long, the ownership claimed is absolute, and the maths is always assumed to be settled.
Then the results come in.
This week’s local government elections delivered the clearest reminder yet that voters are not a fixed asset on anyone’s balance sheet.
Long standing majorities cracked. Dozens of councils are hung. “Our people” looked at the sewage in the streets, the lights that never stay on, the water that sometimes arrives, the clinics that run out of basics, and decided the loyalty programme had expired.
The reaction from some quarters has been a mix of surprise and mild betrayal. As if the electorate had somehow breached the terms of an unwritten contract. As if identity was a binding agreement and service delivery was merely a nice to have.
Here’s the less poetic truth: people do not belong to political parties. They belong to their own lives. They want water that comes out of the tap, electricity that stays on, roads that do not eat their tyres, and refuse that is actually collected. Race, history and rhetoric may open the door. They do not keep the lights on. When the basics fail consistently, the label “our people” becomes a historical footnote rather than a political fact.
Some of us have spent enough time turning around organisations to know that ownership without delivery is just a story you tell yourself.
Customers, employees, citizens - none of them stay because you claimed them. They stay because the system works better with you than without you. The moment it stops working, they exercise the only real power they have: they leave.
South Africans just did exactly that, in large numbers, across the country. The parties that still want to talk about “our people” might want to spend less time counting them and more time serving them.
/ɛrkæns/ retweeted
OF COURSE, SINCE SOUTH AFRICA HAS GRADUATED FROM AGOA, IT NO LONGER NEEDS TO MAINTAIN A TARIFF-FREE QUOTA FOR U.S. POULTRY IMPORTS.
The South African poultry industry doesn’t need to take legal action on this issue, as they suggested to @News24; they primarily need to talk with our DTIC colleagues about the path forward.
For folks wondering why we import U.S. poultry, it is not in isolation. As a country, South Africa generally imports about 20% of its annual poultry needs (roughly 350,000 tonnes of various pieces a year).
We import this volume of poultry products from several countries, mainly Brazil, which accounts for roughly 70% of our poultry imports. Other suppliers are the U.S., Argentina, and the E.U., amongst others.
We will continue importing various poultry products to satisfy our domestic needs. The U.S. will remain one of the suppliers, but the tariff-free quota will have to be revised out.
So, regarding industry stakeholders ' views on the tariff-free access quota from the U.S., I align with the South African poultry industry's view that if we graduate out of AGO, we have no obligation to maintain the tariff-free quota.
This, of course, is if there is no reestablishment of a more productive path forward that includes tariff reduction for both countries.
--Wandile
No AGOA, no US chicken: Poultry lobby sees opening to kill 74 000-tonne import deal
brnw.ch/21x6XF4
