If ever there was a time when we wanted the good news, it must be now. A time to listen to that classic hit by Crocodile Harris " Give me the good news”

If we accept the word forever
Maybe we should live together
And not be scared to watch
The late night news
You can't use guns to build a nation
A bullet never was creation

Engineering wise, SA is really in the doldrums. Can we be positive and expect that things should now get better? That, of course, only happens if people make it happen, so we can do some dreaming that we hope will turn to reality. Positive thinking helps. Consider the options:

The active start to the National Development Plan. The 18 strategic infrastructure projects actually start to happen. The talking and conferences that have consumed any energy associated with them stop and the action starts.

We get let into the secret by treasury as to how these are to funded. The engineering community is invited to participate at the highest level in the Owners’ teams, the project planning and conceptual engineering to ensure that the projects are correctly structured, engineered and managed. The politicians wake up and realise that it’s all about the built environment, and that is created by science and experience, not hollow, electoral promises based on ignorance.

Government and private business interests start to work together for the common goal of increasing the economic growth rate: what about an economic codesa? Corruption gets serious attention.

The unions and the mining industry together reach a win-win understanding and proceed to jointly add value to our massive commodity assets sitting underground that are useless unless mined and treated in a competitive manner. This in turn encourages the reluctant and unconvinced investors to consider SA as a less risky investment destination. Funds start to flow into the economy again and the current account deficit reverses back to a reasonable level. The Rand stabilizes.

Education? Well, while we are dreamimg and hoping, the training and development of teachers becomes a reality as this is the primary necessary condition for our youth to acquire the essentials of literacy and numeracy. The 30 % pass rate becomes history. Idle Funds in the skills development and Seta accounts are applied to the training of engineering resources including the funding of Mentors.

Last but not least, the government becomes convinced that cadre deployment in place of resources with skills and expertise is a disaster.

If you are willing to be part of the solution, by clicking onto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JACJjid9WWY should provide some inspiration.