Proteas a light in a dark country

I haven't known the mood in the country to be this bleak for decades.

Every meeting I attend is preceded by a rant about the bedlam engulfing Johannesburg and reservations about the government's ability to reverse our downward skid into hopelessness.

It's not apparent on the JSE, which closed on Friday within half a percentage point of last July's record peak. But markets are detached from reality, manoeuvred by ultra-high-speed computers, embedded with complex algorithms, created by maths geniuses in some distant land. Also, as I have pointed out many times, the JSE's fortunes are dominated by a dozen or so formidable groups that do most of their business outside the country.

Steel producer Arcelor Mittal (formerly Iscor), once a powerhouse of South African regional might, is now only the 80th-most valuable business on the JSE, alongside pizza and burger franchisor Famous Brands. Once unrivalled in its control over the South African economy, Anglo American struggles to make the top 10, overshadowed by operations such as Naspers, whose Chinese internet business Tencent has elevated the media group into third position, behind British American Tobacco and SAB Miller, neither of which have major exposure to the domestic economy.

In 1960 I recall listening to my parents discuss whether to send us to school, fearful the massacre by police in Sharpeville would set off widespread rioting. Five years later, as an air force conscript, I was issued a .303 rifle with instructions to use it when the communists stormed our camp.

In the years that followed, family, friends and colleagues left in droves, seeking a safer life in Canada, the US and Australia, away from the possible threat of violent political unrest. Those of us who remained faced economic isolation, foreign disdain and social scorn. In February 1990, though, we were happy we stuck it out, elated when president FW de Klerk, encouraged by the collapse of the Soviet Union, implied that the National Party's reprehensible policy of separate development was doomed.

In a gripping address to the nation, he opened the way for the first truly democratic election by unbanning the ANC and agreeing to release Nelson Mandela.

When Mandela was inaugurated as president in 1994, the world toasted the country's bright future. Statesmen, business leaders and entertainers lined up to share our joy and offer help. Twenty years later, government ineptness, high-level corruption, soaring crime levels, the ruling party's hunger for absolute control and the president's failure to account for the use of R250-million of taxpayers' money to expand his homestead are among concerns that have impelled them to desert us.

These misgivings pale into insignificance when compared with the crisis the country faces from a shortage of power, the outcome of years of government imprudence brought about by its appointment of unskilled and unsuitable managers to key posts. Without electricity miners can't mine, manufacturers can't manufacture and builders can't build.

The standstill extends beyond big business. Restaurants can't cook, dentists can't drill and hairdressers can't blowdry hair. Traffic grinds to a halt in cities.

In the past year plummeting commodity prices have reduced mining profits, cutting tax revenues and endangering manufacturers and service industries aligned to the sector.

Our leaders were trained to create chaos, not fix it, so don't expect an epoch-changing speech when our president opens parliament this week.

What we can look forward to, though, are higher income, capital gains and dividend taxes when the finance minister presents his budget on February 25, perhaps in what will be the first public admission that things aren't going all that well. But don't worry. We are a great nation. Our unbeatable cricket team are sure to win the World Cup. That should lift spirits.