Two Bits: Nobody can afford R960 a month for parking!

There possibly is a case for pay parking, but the arrogance of ruling by decree like a king is not only infuriating, but is possibly unlawful. Residents are fuming.

What is more, to charge R6 an hour day and night is exhorbitant.

There is no concession for long-term parking. The working person will have to fork out R48 a day, R960 a month for a five-day week.

The municipality doesn’t know it because it is sheltered from the reality that the business environment is at its lowest ebb in a decade, and nobody can afford that kind of extra cost.
I am disappointed by the timid response of ward councillors to this. Hopefully they have a plan up their sleeves.

My reporters tell me the municipality is blaming the Courier, which reported the development last week, for fanning the fires of protest and encouraging the petition going around, and have threatened to take us to the Press Ombudsman.

My response is, be my guest.

There is no censure for reporting facts.

* * *

The danger of sticking your neck out is that it can get chopped off. I do like taking the occasional chance, not so much that I’d risk my savings on Bitcoin, but you know how the story goes, nothing ventured nothing gained.

One chap I met last week posed the question: are entrepreneurs born or taught? Nature or nurture? I guess it’s a bit of both – you need to be adventurous from the word go but you won’t get very far if you haven’t taken on board the basic rules of business.

Such as those taught to budding new arrivistes by the Entrepreneur programme of the Ilembe Chamber of Commerce: basic accounting, marketing, goal setting and planning, evaluating strengths and weaknesses and a few others.

The favourite songs of the past decade or so have been that the country is going to the dogs, the rich are stealing from the poor, crime is out of control (and so are the politicians) and so packing for Perth has never seemed like a better idea. On the other hand, instead of sitting around wringing their hands, some of the remainers decided to do something about the problem. And so the Entrepreneur competition was born.

Key to the thing are the businessmen, most but not all retired, who decided, ‘Okay, I’ve done well in life, I’m going to give back’. Then every Saturday for 10 weeks they (how many?) coach competition entrants in the basics, help them onto their feet and point them in the right direction.

So much they can do, the rest is up to the individual.

Jane Wiltshire reminds me that when the first competition was launched in 2011, then Ilembe mayor Welcome Mdabe challenged the chamber to produce another Patrice Motsepe. Well, that’s a tall order but it is interesting to see even the small successes.

The 2014 winner, Joyce Ncanana from Just Meats Butchery in Sundumbili is well known, and another success story is Sphesihle Gumede and his kitchen cupboard business.

Sphe started out as a small-time carpenter in Groutville and when he recognised that he needed a boost to get further, he joined the 2013 competition. His positive outlook, determination and grasp of what he’d been taught won him top position, though to be honest there were many others who equally deserved that prize.

He used to take orders for kitchen cupboards, then buy the boards and have them cut to size, then laboriously transport them by taxi to the customer and complete the job. Today he has a factory, a permanent workforce and – first prize of all arrivistes – a Class E Mercedes. Can’t take that away from him!

Don’t you think it would be interesting to find out what has happened to people who have been through the programme? I’d like the chamber to track down all previous entrants and evaluate what it did for them. Not so that the chamber can pat itself on the back, but to see if it has all been worth the effort.

Every year I meet entrants I greatly admire, even if they aren’t necessarily prizewinners, and I wonder what’s happened to them in the intervening years.

Enterprise Ilembe has a fantastic school feeding programme that offers small-scale farmers a market for their produce and so there are projects out there in the sticks where communities have grasped this lifeline out of poverty. They work a couple of hectares of communal or borrowed land, far from commercial centres and in the most difficult circumstances. These people I admire for their grit.

Truth is, whether they come from poverty or a privileged home, entrepreneurs create meaningful jobs. Who knows if we will ever rid ourselves of the thieves running this country, but there will always be room for people who can create jobs and enrich themselves in the process.

Richard Brooks must be feeling chuffed – he has now mentored two Entrepreneur winners, Sphe in 2013 and Ntokozo Ngcobo of DCB Projects this year. If he trained racehorses I would surely bet on them!

* * *

There was a prison break and I saw a midget climb up the fence.

As he jumped down the other side he sneered at me and I thought, well, that’s a little condescending.