The country we want to become

Last week was a good week. A very good week indeed.

First of all, that bothersome little demagogue got put in his place. And then we bowled Australia out for 47 runs.

And, to cap it all, we learnt last week that the government is going to prioritise the growing of cherry trees - or so I think.

Like most of you, I have been wondering for the longest time: what, precisely, is this country's national policy framework on cherries? In July I found myself in an adorable little country called Switzerland. I liked it enormously, mostly because there are no car guards.

In Switzerland there are no car guards because nobody steals cars. They don't steal cars because every family has two or three of the things already and, if they did steal a car, where would they park it?

The trains run on time, the streets are clean, tiny little kids walk themselves to school because all the perverts are firmly locked up and everyone stops at the zebra crossings. Even the public servants religiously go to work and don't take bribes. Switzerland, in other words, is the kind of country we want to become. (If only they played cricket.)

When I was there, the place was awash with cherries. Everywhere you went there were little stalls advertising "kirsche". Many of the stalls were unmanned; you took your punnet and left the requested number of francs or euros.

Switzerland has well-paid jobs, punctual trains and almost no crime. Why do they have all this plenty? Because in Switzerland it is still worth people's while to grow and sell cherries, that's why.

According to Trevor Manuel's just-released National Development Plan, the world consumes four million tons of cherries a year. South Africa produces only 197 tons of cherries.

The farmers of Ficksburg, clearly, need to pull up their socks and we all need to start planting cherry trees. Somebody on the planning commission's board mentioned the cherry example and it was thought a good enough yarn to merit a mention in the Plan, which was released on Friday.

Apart from cherries, I have learnt that we're going to dig a new port out of the coast where the old Durban airport used to be, that our access to the internet and other IT stuff is "abysmal" and that, never mind five million jobs, we need to create 11 million by 2030.

I also learnt that the government is going to subsidise this honky going to night classes in isiZulu (I promise you, Minister Manuel, I shall be there. Can we please start with the naughty words?)

The Plan says we have social solidarity, which shows that we are a caring society. It says we must focus our nation's energies on attacking poverty and "expanding a robust, entrepreneurial and innovative society".

Messrs Manuel and Ramaphosa have a big task on their hands. I agree with them and their fellow commissioners that, at root, we are mostly a caring society.

We love this country and want it to succeed, and we certainly want every household to have a lot more than the R419 a month they talk about.

We want it to be entrepreneurial and innovative and we want our kids to walk on their own to decent schools where they can get the kind of teaching that will equip them to be among the 20000 artisans this country is going to produce annually by 2030. It is too easy to dismiss the Plan as yet another bit of public-sector wishful thinking. As the commission stresses repeatedly, ordinary South Africans, communities and businesses need to take the Plan to heart and think about what they can do to make it work. Let's all jump in, boots and all, and say our two cents' worth. It might be our last chance.

As I was downloading a pdf of the Plan, I got a message from my 3G service provider telling me that I was now out of bundle - before half the month was up.

By my calculations, it then cost me the princely sum of R20 to get my virtual hands on the National Development Plan - money I have to pay to a company which handed out R4-billion in dividends because it couldn't think of other things to spend its excess dosh on. I mean, really: what is that about? (To make matters worse, I wasn't paying attention and ended up downloading Uganda's National Development Plan by mistake.)