As my school memories fade, there is one that is stubbornly refusing to go away: the dreaded pledge page. The most memorable thing about the pledge page was its addictive smell.

For the benefit of younger readers, in the 1980s, copies were made using a Rexograph, better known as a spirit duplicator. As the latter name implies, alcohols were a major component of the solvents used as the ‘inks’ in the duplicator. That period was not called the ‘Roaring Eighties’ for nothing.

In those days, we diligently adhered to the spelling rule – ‘I before E’ for words that have the vowels ‘I’ and ‘E’ – and also acknowledged the wisdom of ‘Professor’ Irwin Corey: “Remember, ‘I’ before ‘E’, except in Budweiser.” Corey was an American comedian.

But I digress. Once in possession of the pledge page, you had to approach any neighbour or a stranger and hound them to pledge a set amount for every round that you walked around the school. The technical term for this endeavour was a walkathon. For these events, children could leave the school premises with limited adult supervision, and with no one seemingly thinking of the dangers that could be posed by lurking strangers or the possibility of children absconding.

Getting the pledges was the easy part; collecting the money was not always that easy. Some neighbours would go into ‘lockdown’ or ‘self-isolation’. This meant that the bank of mom and dad would have to honour the unhonoured pledges. To spare us the hassle and to cap the pledge amount, my father would take the pledge page to his office, asking 15 or so of his colleagues to write down their names and an amount that he had set, and to sign their names. Yes, the signing was a requirement so as to make it all ‘legal’ – go figure! With this done, there was a ‘legitimate’ pledge page, and the bank of mom and dad would bankroll the whole endeavour. For my parents to simply donate would have been so much more efficient, but the school did not accept donations. The school believed that, by hounding neighbours and strangers, children would have learned a valuable life lesson. As to what lesson exactly brings me to what a pledge really means.

By definition, a pledge is a solemn promise or undertaking to do, or refrain from doing, something. But enforceability of the pledge is quite another matter.

This trip down memory lane was prompted by an article published on November 9 on www.zaconfidential.com, which referenced the cumulative amount of R664-billion that was pledged at the 2018 and 2019 South African Investment Conferences (SAICs), out of a target of R1.2 trillion. I wrote this piece just before the third SAIC, which was due to take place on November 17 and 18.

According to an ‘overview’ on the website www.sainvestmentconference.co.za: “This year has seen unprecedented economic challenges as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic and associated preventive measures, and it remains a government priority to continue to work towards an improved investment environment and engage with business, investors and other stakeholders.” But the “unprecedented economic challenges” are actually not “as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic and associated preventive measures”.

But how much of the pledged R664-billion has become actual investment? Real investment, if you will. The thing is that, unlike my pledge page, the South African government does not have any recourse in the event of unhonoured pledges.

The third SAIC’s programme was intended to “profile the strengths and comparative advantages South Africa offers investors and trade partners in a period of growing African integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area”.

As to exactly what South Africa’s comparative advantages are, not even your favourite search engine would actually be able to say with any degree of certainty.