My unusual Sunday – a working lunch with President Jacob Zuma
By Alec Hogg
The rumour mill has it SA President Jacob Zuma will soon leave office. On yesterday's evidence at The Presidency, the opposite is true. He came across as a man in complete control. This was vintage Zuma, from his warm handshake and Zulu greeting on entering, to cracking jokes and generally charming the assembled group of editors.
After promising signals from Team SA in Davos, I was hoping for something more substantial on the economic front. That might have to wait for Thursday night's State of the Nation. Because yesterday Zuma reverted very much to type – blaming the power crisis on "our history"; repeating unworkable idealism about job creation; and reflecting naïve perspectives on the market system ("maybe we should set aside certain sectors of the economy to be labour intensive" …."monopolising of the economy is at an extreme, big companies are swallowing smaller ones.")
I left a tad worried about our President's misguided loyalty to global polecat Putin, but impressed at his humility in admitting numerous problems to be complex so he doesn't have any answers. The biggest step on the road to wisdom is an open mind. Which in today's complicated world, quickly reveals the more one learns, the more there is to know.
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