Tuesday, December 2, 1997

EDITORIAL OPINION

Forging agreement

PEOPLE had better make up their minds whether they want a giant zinc smelter on East London's West Bank -- because we seem almost certain to get it.

This afternoon's open house at West Bank High School and yesterday's workshops are further indications that the R2 billion plant may soon replace Fort Glamorgan prison at the harbour gates. But there are other reasons to believe it is about to happen.

When the project was first announced, East London seemed to be the preferred site and the possible investment of R2bn was warmly welcomed for the jobs it would create; the boost to the harbour, and its potential contribution to downstream industries and the city's rates.

Hopes dimmed as Coega harbour seemed ever more likely to be built on time, and then as Gencor split into two divisions: mining based in Johannesburg, and Billiton, responsible for non-mining projects, based in London.

But the smelter is an unusual project. The zinc ore will be imported and virtually all the refined zinc will be exported. South Africa's contribution to the process, apart from a relatively central location on the world map, will be vast amounts of low-cost electricity, produced from the Mpumalanga coal mines and power stations. (Clean electricity could, in future, be brought from Cahorra Bassa in Mozambique.)

The bottom line is that the viability of the smelter project depends on the competitive price of electricity, which depends on the value of the rand. The rand in turn depends in part on the price of gold, which has been declining for some time and slumped again with the collapse of its Eastern markets. From the lowest level in 12 years, it dropped another three dollars an ounce yesterday, to trade at 294 dollars.

This is bad news for gold miners, for anybody about to go overseas on holiday, for most importers, and for the government, which loses income from taxes on gold -- but it is good news for exporters, because it brings down prices, including the price of electricity, and makes them more competitive. The nett effect is to make the smelter more viable and to remove any realistic hope of the government funding Coega harbour.

Locating the giant smelter at Fort Glamorgan brings it very much closer to the city centre than was originally proposed. While the developers are confident there will be no significant pollution, they accept that the critical step for the future of the city will be the conditions it lays down for the operation of the plant.

If it is a clean, odour-free and quiet tenant, as promised, it will be an immediate gain. If it turns out to be a noisy, dirty and smelly blight on the landscape, the city must have the power to compel the operators to clean it up, or shut it down.

Similar plants in sensitive areas in other parts of the world, lead us to believe that the city and the developers can forge an agreement.

Living in a garden

THE DAILY Dispatch picture on page 2 last Tuesday of a display of the often spectacular yellow wild flowers known as inkanga, has prompted the reflection that in this area we are living in a garden, writes Tom Louw.

The inkanga is a common annual sight, and because they are so familiar and so generous with their bright colouring, people in the main seem to take little notice of them.

That makes one think rather of the wild cosmos which spread the bright beauty of their pink, cerise and white blossoms along miles of road-sides in inland Natal, and even more in Zimbabwe. Just as the cosmos brings glory to the sun-baked drabness of the late summer and autumn months, so the inkanga gives a special lift to November in the Eastern Cape.

Tom says he's seen great drifts of these plants just off the main road when driving into Gonubie. There are patches, too, along John Bailie Road. "Inkanga is only part of the great wealth of wild flowers the veld around us has to offer. The graceful nodding harebells once grew generously in what is now Baysville Extension. Only ten years ago you could have picked bunches on a couple of vacant plots there.

"In the same area (along Medefindt Crescent) you will often see fine displays of nasturtiums and cannas. These are not wild flowers, of course, but fugitives which have spread from cultivated gardens and now grow wherever they can find an open patch of soil to root in.

"You will see cannas, too, along John Bailie Road, where there have often been thriving clumps of leonotis -- the lion's ear known to generations of children as wild dagga."

Then, in Beacon Bay, on the big vacant area along Sherwood Drive adjoining the municipal offices and library, he has often seen lilies like amaryllis (wondering also that they may have been crinums) which bloomed a while and then disappeared.

Driving along he says you will often see in the bush by the roadside a delicate creeper covered in small white flowers -- notably as you approach the beginning of the climb to Hogsback. "It's a very prolific creeper which will cover a large tree in white flowers -- quite beautiful -- and then after a while disappear and grow again the following year.

"Then, of course, there is the sesbania, the declared noxious weed which is known in Zimbabwe as the tango tree, and sold by nurseries there as a flowering shrub.

"People who stroll along the Esplanade will be familiar with the nasturtiums which have spread over the bank on the seaward side. There you may also see what looks like bits of shining white paper littering the grass. These are actually the large white trumpets of convulvulus or morning glory creeper which has made its home there and blooms every year.

"Indeed, there is so much in our immediate surroundings to see and enjoy that it's fair to say we live in a garden. Remember the words of W M Davies ...

'What is this life, if full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.'

"There is always something of beauty to justify the staring."

"I don't always get everything I want! I got you didn't I?"

Thought for today

Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you -- Horace, Roman poet (65 BC-8 BC).

Cars in news

From our files ...

50 years ago: Britain is to bid for world supremacy in motor racing. A new racing car of 11/2 litres is being built, called the BRM (British Racing Motors). At the head of the new project is one of Britain's finest drivers, Raymond Mays, whom it is hoped will be driving BRM cars to victory in international races before the end of next year. Its designer is Paul Burden, who was responsible before the war for Britain's ERA racing car.

30 years ago: Mr Verster de Wit, designer of the first South African-built motor car, has been appointed liaison officer to the Design Institute of the Bureau of Standards. Born and educated at Harrismith, in the Free State, he studied fine and graphic art with Maurice van Essche. Later, as an industrial engineer specialising in motor-car body design (styling) he worked for the Rootes Group at Coventry, England. Back in the Republic Mr De Wit and two partners manufactured the first South African-designed and built motor car, a sports model, GSM Dart.

Tailpiece

One day at the admissions office in heaven, St Peter receives a call from the duty angel.

"A whole busload of souls from Gauteng has just arrived at the Pearly Gates," he reports. "And there's a problem because they don't seem to be booked in. What shall I do?"

"Just a moment," says St Peter. "I'll check my lists."

A little while later he calls back to the gatekeeper's office and says: "Look, about those souls from Gauteng ..."

"They've gone!" shouts the duty angel.

"What? The whole busload of them?"

"No, no, not them ... the Pearly Gates!"

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