The event was well attended by many prominent South Africans: the President himself (or should I say the honourable President) opened the summit and most Ministers, high business officials, climate change experts and union representatives followed to make sure that their interests were represented.
And then there was me – a small fish in this ocean of big sharks. Most of the other delegates had enough experience in the field to catch me out and eat me within seconds – I was an easy victim, a really small fish! But if you are now thinking that I made a fool of myself trying to hide my embarrassing lack of knowledge, then you couldn’t be more wrong – because I had a magical weapon! The event organizers gave it to me, I put it round my neck and it immediately turned me into one of the most popular people at this conference! My weapon was a name tag with two magical words on it: National Treasury!
The effect that these two little words had was simply miraculous! Suddenly I was everyone’s best friend and no-one dared to say anything that would make me feel uncomfortable. They enforced their business cards on me, offered me their seats and were as polite and attentive as can be! Journalists were interested in my opinion hoping to make their articles more interesting with “Treasury official says” statements, other departments wanted to know spending plans and industry bosses were questioning me about new taxes that we might implement! But here, once again my magic weapon saved me some embarrassment: Because of my position as a Treasury representative, I am not actually allowed to give information about things we are currently working on. So I could just smile and say “I am sorry, but I cannot comment on this!” Rather than “I am sorry, I have no clue what you are talking about!” Sounds a lot better, huh?
So this was an interesting experience, but the conference itself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The sessions were interesting and informative, the organisation excellent and the catering fantastic, but the actual outcome of the conference can only be classified as disappointing at best. The initial summit information had a set of goals that the conference wanted to achieve. It seemed that after four days of negotiations, the final conference document was exactly the same as the initial one, but every time it said “The summit wants to achieve this” it now said “The summit realises that this is an important issue, but could not agree on it”. I found it extremely discouraging to see that it had taken a four day conference, a massive venue and over 600 delegates for key-stakeholders to get together and talk about what they were doing. It seems to me that a simple mail could have achieved the same outcome much more cost efficient!
But then again, I really do not want to complain too much about the conference. It didn’t only give me the opportunity to spend a week out of the office and provided me with lots of yummy food, but also allowed me to spend some time in Joburg! Ever since our trip to Swaziland, Nicolene and I have been in touch lots and so it was almost logical that I would stay with her while the conference was on. Treasury provided me with a private chauffeur and thus freedom and many fun nights! Nicolene certainly knows her way around town and took me to lots of cool bars, restaurants and a lovely classical concert! Whoever said that there’s no culture on this side of the world was wrong! It might be a bit harder to find than in London, but it is equally good, much cheaper and you can enjoy your interval glass of wine on a balcony rather than a small crowded reception room!
So after I had already spent all week in Joburg, Joburg actually came to me at the weekend! Following on from our Cricket adventure, Ewa and I now joined the Jozi crowd for rugby. And what can I say – after the Cricket my expectations were not high, but rugby live is truly excellent!
I thoroughly enjoyed it and definitely want to see more of it. The atmosphere – and that is what I really didn’t expect – was a lot more relaxed and chilled out than at the Cricket, even though it was a really important game. I blame the fact that you could not take alcohol into the stands for it, but whatever it was, it made the whole event a lot more enjoyable! Having said that, there was (at least) one fight between rivaling supporters … but overall I’d still call it peaceful and relaxed! So within two months of being out here, I managed to see Cricket and Rugby live … two things I never though I would pay for! So bring on the next random sport … I think horseracing might be coming up soon!
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