This is the Business: Lots of big plans but where are the skills?

As that economic wizard, Jacob Zuma, guided by his presidential infrastructure coordination commission, gabbles on about spending trillions of our tax rands on vast projects in the years ahead, he begs the question: Where are the skills needed to bring these projects to fruition efficiently, timeously and within budget?

We simply do not have them. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in the Eskom shambles. As Jasson Urbach of the Free Market Foundation pointed out last year: "In August, Eskom announced that Medupi would cost a maximum of R105-billion, excluding interest during construction. [This interest] is conservatively estimated at R30-billion ... increas[ing] the price of Medupi to R135-billion."

Urbach added that this "excludes the cost of the required flue gas desulphurisation plant ... yet another R10-billion to R15-billion". So Medupi is likely to cost between R145-billion and R150-billion, about three times more than Eskom's 2007 estimate of R52-billion.

At best, Medupi's first unit will come on line only in the second half of this year. That is a mere 54 months behind schedule, at three times the price. Meanwhile, Kusile struggles on, burning through tax billions, as, unbelievably, Eskom plans a third coal-powered station. Talk about pollution.

Nowhere in successful economies, as Urbach said, is the state power producer both player and referee in the market, protected from competition - that wonderful cold shower for the incompetent.

Here, of course, we are talking about amounts in the R52-billion range (R150-billion after the ANC's tender ministrations and its 25% stake in Hitachi), rather than the trillions our dancing giggler promises. Just what makes him believe the government is capable of ever achieving targets or meeting deadlines is a mystery. Consider the disasters of South African Airways and the SABC. The man defies the evidence before his eyes.

Our most fundamental problem is education, in which we lag the world in practically every sphere.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan advised us in his budget this week that we have spent R115-billion on higher education in the past five years, including R18.6-billion on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme. He will give the scheme R19.4-billion in the next three years, assisting 500000 students a year.

Well, we better do something. Only miserable, battle-scarred little Yemen is worse than us in world rankings of mathematics skills.

Loane Sharpe of Adcorp estimates that there are about 470000 vacancies in the private sector that could be filled immediately if the skills were available. Broad-based unemployment, including the discouraged, is 37%. And of those people younger than 35, 69% are unemployed. On the other hand, the unemployment rate for high-skilled individuals is 0.4%.

Among our youth, we have the third-highest unemployment rate - more than 50% - in the world, according to the World Economic Forum. It ranks us 143 out of 144 for the quality of our maths and science education and 140 for the quality of our education system, and primary education comes in at 132.

Most of our higher-education students opt for soft disciplines such as the arts, humanities and social science, whereas, Sharpe points out, employers seek managers and high-level professional graduates such as accountants, lawyers, doctors and engineers.

Last year, 56% of doctor posts were vacant (14351) and 46% (44780) of nursing jobs were unfilled. And you should try, as I did recently, to see a specialist: someone can wait six months. I was fortunate to secure an appointment on April 7. Provided, of course, that I am still around.

Our leaders have seen fit to make it increasingly difficult for skilled foreigners to seek work in South Africa. They now wait more than five years for work permits as largely unskilled migrants cross our porous borders daily, bringing with them competition at the lower scale of jobs and, frequently, habits of crime bred in poverty.