THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

I’m not sure if this is wise but I’ve put down May 18th, 19th and 20th in the year 2009 as dates to remember. Why? Well, for the first time in a long time I picked up snippets of commentary over these three days that served to lift rather than depress the spirit. The first was on May 18th when Cees Bruggemans, chief economist of FNB, writing in The Rex Column, had this to say: “Our recession is probably hitting bottom about now (2Q2009) after a hair-raising plunge in 4Q2008 and a still smart decline in 1Q2009. This, at least, is the pattern one gets when examining manufacturing and electricity output data.” Then, on May 19th, he followed up in another comment with these words: “Global banking repair appears well advanced and the real economy stabilizing after the abrupt output losses of late 2008. Along with strong government support, it seems unlikely the crisis will keep spinning out of control. Rather the contrary as financial markets keep discounting the end of the recession and the beginning of a new recovery.” 

On that same day, Tito Mboweni, Governor of the S.A. Reserve Bank, addressed delegates at the Road Freight Association conference. Talking on the economic crisis, he said: “The recent stress-tests conducted on US banks indicated that while banks still remain under pressure and some require further recapitalisation, the worst of the bad news may be behind us.” Looking locally, he said: “While it seems clear that the first quarter of this year was also one of negative growth, the general view is that the worst is probably behind us and that things may start to improve slowly in the coming months. The latest consensus surveys indicate that growth is expected to be low but positive in the final two quarters of this year, and to recover to around 2,7 per cent next year.” 

The next day, on May 20th, I picked up a web article written by Jim Mele, editor-in-chief of FleetOwner, a well respected USA trucking publication. Writing out of New York, he stated: “Truck freight may be showing the first signs of a turnaround after 39 months of depressed freight volumes including sharp declines since last October, according to truckload executives addressing an audience of financial analysts here.” Dare I say it? We need a bit of good news after the torrid time we’ve all being going through. So here goes: ‘YIPPEE!!!” 

Well done Mr Minister 

The voting ink had hardly dried on millions of thumbnails around South Africa when our new Minister of Transport, S’bu Ndebele, found himself caught up in a raging controversy surrounding a R1-million S500 Mercedes-Benz, two cows and a couple of other gifts he was given as a farewell and thank you gesture by a group of emerging Vukuzakhe roadworks contractors whom he had helped put on the path of success during his tenure as MEC of Transport in KwaZulu Natal. The story hit national headlines and understandably so given that the past years have seen our politicians embroiled in a series of corruption scandals that served to regress rather than progress our country and its people. The immediate perception was that corruption lay at the heart of the saga. Here’s my take on it. 

I think the act of giving the Minister the gifts was an innocent gesture of appreciation by people whose lives he had helped uplift through his multi-billion Rand roads building projects in the province. These projects, it is reported, benefitted more than 30 000 people and some 40 contractors got together to buy the luxury car as a token of appreciation to a guy who had done what politicians are supposed to do, namely, deliver on services that benefit and uplift the lives of the electorate. The way I see it is that they just wanted to say thanks and cheers in a grand way. Phatheni Zondi, one of the contractors responsible for organising the farewell party, was quoted in The Sowetan as saying: “When we started we had nothing. We were given an opportunity by Ndebele when he began building roads and bridges in the province and put in programmes to help the poor.” She stated that they had all decided to buy the gift well ahead of his appointment as national Minister of Transport. “We believed he was retiring. We regret the pain we have caused him. We wanted to say thank you to him, not to damage his reputation. It was an honest gift.” As to Ndebele accepting the gifts at the time, well of course he accepted them. What was he supposed to do? Tell the 5 000 people who gathered at his farewell party that he didn’t appreciate their gesture by throwing the car keys and cow patties at them? It was all innocent stuff and the real culprit here is the culture of corruption that was allowed to embed itself in political ranks over the past years. South Africans are very sensitive to any hint of corruption. 

As I see it, Minister Ndebele was put in a tight and unexpected spot by innocent people who had nothing but appreciation and goodness in their hearts. And sure he might have been tempted to keep that Merc. Wouldn’t you have been? It’s a kewl car man. But he couldn’t - and he knew he couldn’t. Evidence of this is that despite being told by no less a person than the President of South Africa and the ANC executive that he could keep the gifts so long as he declared them in Parliament’s Register of Members’ Interests, he handed them back with the request that they be sold and the money used to establish a training programme for emerging contractors. Mr Minister, you did the right thing. It was an act of statesmanship conducted in the good interests of all. It is thus that the welcome extended to you in this edition by FleetWatch and numerous other companies in the trucking industry is a warm one. We’re glad to have you on board as Minister of Transport and wish you the best in your new portfolio. There’s a lot of work to be done and you’re out the starting blocks in a grand way. Let’s run the race well. 

PS To those who might think I’m slithering up to a politician, not so. This is the same gentleman who labeled me a criminal when I organised a road blockade against crime back in 1997. He was wrong on that saga. He’s right on this one. Let’s go forward. 

Patrick O'Leary
Managing Editor