Thoughts on Different Societal Issues

Population and Employment statistics StatsSA mid-year population estimates for July 2014 stood at 54 million. [1] Approximately 30% of the population is aged younger than 15 years (16.2 million) and approximately 8.4% (4.54 million) is 60 years or older. This puts the 15-59 age group at 61.6% (33.264 million). The 2014 Quarter 1 (Jan to March) Labour Force Survey shows the Population aged 15–64 years as 35.177 million. The Labour force being 20.122 million, these are the people of a productive age who can be employed. The people actually employed was 15.055 million with the employment in the formal sector in the formal sector (non-agricultural) being 10.78 million [2] Government Revenues Government gets money and spends money in the same way an individual does. Taxes such as income tax, corporate tax, value added tax (VAT), fuel levies, customs & excise duties form the revenue inflows for government. In the 2013/14 budget, tax revenue from personal income ta...

As we live our lives we need to be constantly conscious that all we see around us is testament of people’s sacrifices. In order for any good or service to be available there is someone who had to sacrifice their time, talent and treasure. Don’t buy into the nonsense often spewed by people who call themselves ‘self-made’. No person becomes a success based only on their own efforts…someone had to sacrifice for them to get to where they are. In my life there are some individuals I would like to acknowledge for the sacrifices which they have done and are still doing in order for me to get to where I am today.  Parents First and foremost the people deserving all the adulation are my dad and mum. Raising six children (of which I’m the last) and sending them to boarding school for high school was not an easy feat. Though there are many things which I desired growing up, knowing the sacrifice they were undergoing I learnt to live with the essentials. They sacrifice...

Esther 4: 12 And they told Mordecai what Esther had said 13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews… (ESV) The context of the above verses is; a decree had been sent out for all the Jews to be exterminated. Mordecai (Queen Esther’s uncle) had sent a message to her for her to speak to the king (her husband) in order for him to reverse the decree because it was a plot which had been orchestrated. Esther gave an excuse that it was against protocol to enter the king’s room without an invitation and it was a trespass punishable by death, unless the king extended grace to the trespasser. From this story there is something which has always occupied me regarding how most times we live our lives in a bubble disassociating ourselves from things happening elsewhere. Do not think that because something has happened in a far off place you are not affected. With the inter-linkages wh...