So the public servant strike is over. Teachers and nurses are back at work. For a month without pay the additional 7.5% will take a couple of months to recoup on lost pay, but who really cares? Not the union bosses! So, they didn't deliver on their promise of 12% but they got that 1.5% more than what government offered to start with. Whoopee!

Now the rest of the workforce is ganging up on the government. National parks workers are on strike. Our electricity provider workers are threatening with a strike, Vodacom workers are on a strike and some obscure group is striking to have their union recognised by their industry bosses. Not that long ago our soccer players threatened with a strike whilst participating in an international competition.

Just as well that all the major stadiums in preparation for 2010 are having power generators installed. Now we just need more food dispensing machines, automated trains to replace taxis and supercomputers to replace government officials. Technology can't move too fast for us here on the Southern tip of Africa! Imagine the ball our unions can have in 2010. I just hope that amidst all the hype of 2010 the relevant organisations are budgeting for some crippling strikes and unforeseen wage increases.

Talk about stadiums. Some of these had to be 'downgraded' from the original plans due to restricted budgets, or rather the exceeding of budgets. As with the infamous arms deal no-one ever budget for increased costs. These include manpower of which many engineers have to be imported under contract, the increased cost of materials and the inability of local firms to supply.

A quick example of how business is done here -

The Minister of Public Works wanted to remodel her office, so she invited different contractors for tenders. One was from Johannesburg, one from Durban and the last one from Soweto.

"OK gentlemen, I want a nice job ," She said, "Let's hear from Jhb?"

The guy took out his ultrasonic measuring device and laptop and began measuring, scrawling on the computer, calculating. Eventually he said "R90 000, Madam Minister,"

"That seems like quite a lot of money! Why R90,000?" "You see," he replied, "that's R40 000 for material, R40 000 for labour and R10 000 for my profit".

She seemed OK with that and turned to the Durban contractor. "So how much do you want to do the job?" she asked. The Durban fella took out a rusted tape measure, broken clipboard and a blunt pencil.   He took some measurements, scratched some calculations on the back of his Rothmans box and came up with a figure of R70,000.

"That's interesting!" said Stella. "Explain the R70 000?" "Simple, Madam Minister, I got a brother-in-law in the hardware trade, so that's R35 000 for materials, R30,000 for my guys, and R5,000 for my profit and all."

She was amused but happy to accept the explanation.

Then she asked the Soweto contractor for his quotation.  He just smiled, looked the minister in the eyes and said, "R270 000!" "Yoh Yoh Yoh!.... How did you come to that amount without even taking your measurements?  What is that amount for?"

"That's R100 000 for me and R100 000 for you!" "So what about the remaining R70 000?"

"We hire that guy from Durban to do the job!!!"

Let's have your ideas -

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