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Westake, Statues, Electricity, and our City and Country

Dear all

http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/00eba98047ffa988b8d2ff4405f77b26/Nine-arrested-during-Steenberg-taxi-protest-20150413

It took me 1 hour 40 mins to get to Westlake Business Park today.

It normally takes 45 mins during traffic and 60 mins on a bad day and 30 mins without traffic.

At least it kept the petrol companies happy!

But it really destroyed the productivity of every business in Westlake today and possibly this entire week due to additional stress.

Additional unnecessary stress after the recent fires in the area where people also couldn't get to work.

Some of us really want to work and continue helping to make South Africa great - for ALL its people!

For myself, I returned to SA back in July 1995. I left the OLD South Africa in 1987 and returned to the NEW South Africa in 1995, 20 years ago this year.

As you all know, my blood type is B+ (be positive) and I am an optimist. I believe that if you are a cynic or pessimist, then you cannot survive in South Africa.

South Africa is an incredible place. Full of possibility. It's time for our leaders to stand up to this racism and nip it in the bud.

When people resort to violence BEFORE they have even tried to negotiate, then we are in trouble. And when leaders, like the UCT Council, cave in without regard for due process, then they set a really bad precedent. And then when rival taxi associations resort to violence in the middle of a busy city intersection, when they could have met elsewhere, then we have a potential crisis. Fortunately the police took appropriate action and I salute them today.

I personally think that ALL statues and monuments should be removed in South Africa. Who wants to spend money building monuments, maintaining them and fighting about them, when there are so many more important things to think about like electricity, water, nourishment, our air, pollution, etc?

In the past few weeks, there have been hardly any articles in the newspapers about Eskom and the electricity crisis.

Before the Statue crisis, there were all sorts of letters and articles in the press every day.

The public have been sidetracked into this stupid behaviour and are missing the point. Without Medupi power station, which should have been completed 2 years ago and which should have started supplying the grid with electricity long before that, there are at least a million people without jobs. Another million people don't have jobs because Kusile power station is incomplete. And millions more don't have jobs because so much more of our energy resources are corroded or incomplete.

It's time for us all to refocus our energies where they are needed. Not on some past issues that non of us can resolve, but rather on working together to make this country how we all want it to be, a land of opportunity, a land of ubuntu, and a land of wealth and plenty for all.

Regards
David

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