Sanral CEO walks away...

Does Nazir Alli's resignation seem innocent???

Nazir Alli

As most motorist knew, the new e-tolling system was to have started on Monday the 30th of April. To the advantage of the public, the system was put on hold just about a week ago by the North Gauteng High Court. This morning Mail & Guardian reported that the CEO of the South African Roads Agency Limited (Sanral), Nazir Alli has put forth his resignation from the company and it was successfully approved. Sadly just as the public would have suffered financial loss had the system been running already, so will Sanral should the court decide against the e-tolling system. It certainly is not the first or the last time a CEO resigns from their position or company, but what is surprising about this case, is the way that Alli decides to up and leave at such a critical time. iOL news stated that Alli has with no doubt just thrown away the last bit of credibility the public had on Sanral, which is certainly true, as if that was not enough for Sanral to worry about, the National Treasury told the parliamentarins that Sanral will only be able to survive another six months in terms of finances.

Alli's sudden walk raises even more questions from the public about this e-tolling system.

The banning of alcohol adverts

Unprotected sex, death on the roads, murder rates, rape cases, drugs and many other bad things that are destroying our societies are mostly the results of alcohol consumption. Lately South Africa has been drafting a legislation to discontinue all advetisements and the marketing of alcohol. To this point not much has been said on the content of this legislation, but the Business Day has reported that the measure would place a total ban on all alcohol advertisements.

Should this legislation pass, many advertising companies will lose a lot of money, more especially when it comes to the publicity they get by sponsoring well supported activities such as soccer or sports in general. None the less the burning question should be, how will the banning of alcohol adverts be affective in trying to reduce the amount of alcohol consumption? Let us take into consideration the fact that we do not find cigarette adverts in our country, but even so, according to the National Council against Smoking in South Africa alone about 44.000 adults die from smoking each year, and according to the World Health Organization, in the world 1.3 billion people die from smoking each year. Looking at these statistics in our country alone, can we really count on this new legislation to do damage control?