The taxman cometh - 5 Mar 2013

Of course, the big news over the past few days has been Pravin Gordhan's budget speech, which has been dissected and analysed, as usual. Not least of these analyses is that by Nedbank Private Wealth, which provided its observations on the 2013-14 Budget Speech.

Gordhan's budget, as usual, was somewhat of a balancing act, but what taxpayers everywhere would like to see is action, not just words, on corruption, mismanagement and waste. After all, we all realise we have to pay taxes, but we want to see our tax monies being used where it matters - and properly, across the board.

Our planet is our only home, so we'd better do better in looking after it. One way of doing so is through protecting and nurturing biodiversity, which, says minister of water and environmental affairs, Edna Molewa, contributes to economy - she says the benefits derived from biodiversity or ecosystem services are estimated at R73bn, contributing to 7% of South Africa's GDP per annum.

We've heard it all before... this plan and that plan to create jobs - or "job opportunities" - and this time it's the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government that says it will assist in creating 11m jobs by 2030.

Job creation is absolutely vital for the future of this country; some fear the levels of frustration and despair among the unemployed could rise to such levels as to lead to civil unrest. Hence, any plan to create jobs is to be welcomed... but how many have there been, and what successes have they achieved? Governments - provincial and national, need to be wary of over-promising and under-delivering.

Is it the end of the land line? Mitchell Barker says that landline users in South Africa are cutting the cord.

Finally, our not so frugal, but fast and fancy motoring editor Henrie Geyser reckons that the new Ford Fiesta is just that... frugal, fast, fancy.