http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1418LBY047reulb-19990506&qt=y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

relevant quote:

"Standard Chartered Chairman Patrick Gillam told the group's annual meeting he saw the biggest problems in Africa, where many of Standard Chartered's infrastructure suppliers and counterparties appeared not to be prepared.

``There's no question that for a bank like us in emerging markets, the beginning of the Year 2000 and the extra day in February is going to cause a lot of problems,'' Gillam said in response to a question about Y2K.

Standard Chartered's systems were fully compliant, but third-party suppliers of power, water and other systems, as well as trading partners, may not be, Gillam said.

He said Standard Chartered staff leave had been cancelled and they expected to work through the New Year.

``To give you an example, one country in Africa asked us recently if we could give a presentation to the cabinet on what the problem was,'' he said. He did not name the country involved. "

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 06, 1999

Answers

Of even more concern Arlin is actually having your money in Rands - I have two good friends plus an uncle and two cousins that have all left over the last 2-3 years. They felt it was just far too dangerous to live there, both in Jburg and even Durban.

Recently I have heard of a great exodus of programmers to Holland - where they can of course speak the language (Afrikaans is very similar) - therby quadrupling their wages in a stable currency. This has of course guaranteed failure for many projects in SA, the writing is on the wall there, it's even more tempting for those left to consider GOOD.

I feel sorry for SA, it's a beautiful place and the people have had a rough time of it - and it's only going to get worse.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 06, 1999.

hmmm...maybe Hoff could find his ONE example of contaminated bank data problem over there...

-- a (a@a.a), May 06, 1999.