Buddy, can you spare a dime?---or a million?

When I lived in South Africa, one of the Government Institutions which the Afrikaans people were so proud of was the Land Bank. Now this was a bank like no other, because it existed solely to provide loans for the farming population of South Africa, to farmers of all colours and races, basing it’s loans purely on the business plans and proposals of the prospective borrowers.

It was difficult to get loans from the Land Bank, but not impossible, because if you fulfilled the strict criteria, you got your money for your farming needs. The officials who ran the bank looked after the money lent as though it was their own, and because of that, there were very few defaulters, and even fewer bad debts.

However, move on some twenty-three years, and the arrival of the wonderful all-Black A.N.C. Government, and the days of milk and honey had arrived! See what happens when you let a bunch of coons get their hands on the reins of power! The Land Bank has confirmed the suspension of chief executive Alan Mukoki, chief financial officer Xolile Ncgama and credit general manager Godfrey Masilela.

Democratic Alliance spokesperson on agriculture, Kraai van Niekerk, on Wednesday said the bank had been steadily deteriorating with three consecutive audit reports from the Auditor General leaving it technically insolvent with over R2-billion needed to keep it afloat.

Moneyweb reports that in the Land Bank’s 2006 annual report, a R330-million loss was reported, compared with the loss of R207-million the previous year. The National Treasury had provided a R700-million capital injection and a further R1.5bn guarantee to the Land Bank “to turn around and refocus the Land Bank to ensure that it delivers on its mandate…particularly its contribution to promoting previously disadvantaged individuals in the agriculture sector, development in the agriculture sector and AgriBEE, and that it remains sustainable.”

So what you see is the White business and tax base cash being sent to plug holes in the bottomless pit of giving loans to useless “Affirmative Action” farmers of a particular skin hue, and brother; it ain’t White!!!