Pan African Unity

Q: “Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?” Kamala Harris: “IRAN. Iran has American blood on their hands. We need to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my HIGHEST PRIORITIES.” Q: “So if you have proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, would you take military action?” K: “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment.”

The reason why Iran use the Legos 🤔

So the IDC just ran a paid News24 piece telling South Africa how great they are. Allow me to do something the IDC apparently cannot: basic maths. They say they approved R26.6 billion in “transformation funding” last year and “created or preserved” 15,000 jobs. That is R1,773,333 per job. One million, seven hundred and seventy-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three rand. Per job. You could pay someone the average South African salary for nearly seven years with that money. Or you could give it to the IDC and they will “create or preserve” one job. Maybe. If the company does not end up in their R30 billion distress portfolio. Oh, did I not mention that? The IDC’s distress portfolio, that is the money they invested that is now in trouble, is R30 billion. That is bigger than the R26.6 billion they approved this year. They are underwater. They are losing money faster than they are deploying it. And of that R30 billion in distress? R9 billion is in black-empowered entities. So roughly a third of the “transformation” money they are bragging about in paid newspaper articles is currently circling the drain. But wait, there is more. Since 2017, the IDC has given R8.5 billion to 128 black industrialists. Sounds impressive until you learn that a single manganese company got R6.1 billion. One company. That is 72% of the total. Three companies consumed virtually the entire allocation. The average per industrialist? R66.4 million. Here is my favourite part: the IDC says 88% of its funding goes to black-owned businesses. Beautiful number. Very clean. Very round. Very paid-media-friendly. But when NAFCOC went to Parliament and said the IDC is undermining black industrialists through “aggressive recovery actions, premature legal enforcement, and liquidation processes,” the Portfolio Committee Chair responded: “It appears that the IDC has not effectively embedded issues of transformation in its business processes.” That is Parliament. Not me. Parliament. So here is what R26.6 billion in “transformation funding” actually looks like: 1. R1.77 million per job (if you believe the job numbers). 2. R30 billion in distress (which they do not mention in the paid article). 3. R9 billion in black business distress (which they definitely do not mention). 72% of black industrialist funding going to three companies (which they will never mention). But sure. Run the paid article. The maths will still be here in the morning.