Mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu, someone who most likely has never put together a business plan in her life and rather lives like a parasite off the income of taxpayers, says Anglo “did not have their business plan properly aligned,” because if they had – she argues – 14,000 jobs would not need to be cut so suddenly.

While confusing ‘strategy’ with a ‘business plan’ (and not correcting herself), Shabangu has the cheek to say this about a company that has been operating and creating value for shareholders since 1917.

It must be said though that Shabangu gets one thing right, in that Anglo should have seen the warning signs long ago and retrenched more staff in the past. It would’ve saved the pain in 2012/13.

Sad, but true.

The state clearly wants to have more say over private property in SA, as Shabangu says Anglo “should have consulted with the state and labour unions before announcing plans to cut jobs.”

Shabangu also says Anglo is contributing to unemployment in SA, despite the company still employing thousands of other workers here.

About the 14,000 about to find themselves without a job, Shabangu says Anglo has not trained these workers so they will not be able to find work in other sectors. Reality check, Susan, these workers could easily find work in other sectors, but it would need to be below the minimum wage as the new employer would need to upskill the workers in their specific trade. How is Anglo – a specialist miner – supposed to train their workers to be computer programmers? So here’s the thing: Minimum wage laws will prevent these workers from finding work in other sectors where they will be worth less until they become more skilled.

Finally, last time I checked, government took over responsibility to train and educate people to find work through the educational system, not Anglo! But government can’t deliver textbooks to all its schools now, can it?