PEOPLE-POWER: NO LOAD SHED FOR EVEN A MINUTE

Latest Stats SA figures reflect a reality we all anxiously anticipate every day and, like calls from unknown numbers, we do not really know how we are doing until we answer them. As I cautiously faced the unknown from Stats SA, I felt my heart sink and then rise again.

The construction industry did lose R39 billion, as contribution to GDP last year; what we felt was real. But personally, while I feared we losing the industry, we have kept up the side and contributed R107 billion to GDP.

I am not going to minimise the horrendous truth of that loss. And that truth looks like this: despite everything government did and did not do to us, we are ROBUST. And this should motivate us all.

We, as a nation, are led by a president who publicly disavows constitutional responsibility for simply keeping the lights on. Instead of streamlining the resurrection of our electricity sector, he appears to have brought more noses to the trough of Eskom's self-enrichment programme. We will see what this really means over time.

Yet we South Africans are doing what I have always seen us do. We are finding, making and creating opportunity for ourselves and for each other. This is bringing cohesion to our national character which we have never seen before. If you do not know what I am talking about, just bring up our collective concerns to those with whom you might not naturally fall into discussion. We share a national vision and our attitudes are healthily homogenous.

If government does not change now, it will feel the wrath of South Africans at polling stations in next year's general election.

Nicholas McDiarmid, Editor: SA Builder

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