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John Kane-Berman says Mmusi Maimane appears unsure as to whether the ANC or the NP is to blame for our major ills.
Villager say they love the party but the poverty they live in is hurting them badly, the ANC needs to be brought down to earth and help them
Zuma Corruption Charges: Zuma“still weighing his options” a full 19 days after judgement
The SABC and its COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng are still hogging headlines as they remain defiant against an Icasa ruling that the editorial policy is unconstitutional. Retired journalist Ed Herbst, the thorn in the state broadcaster’s side, digs deeper.
Thinking South Africans are increasingly referring to the country’s “frog in a kettle” syndrome. If the water is brought slowly to boil, even though he could easily jump to safety, a kettled frog won’t move until it is too late. Best way to avoid becoming a similar victim is through continual and rational assessment of reality.
Capital is cowardly, flowing only to places where it feels safe. Never to where it risks being appropriated by those controlling levers of power. Zimbabwe is the poster nation for this reality. Its continued attacks on foreign investors has resulted in capital inflows drying up. And an imploding economy.
Loyalty is among the most admirable of human traits. Blind loyalty one of the worst. And when it comes to one Duduzile Myeni, chairman of SA Airways and of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, South Africa’s President is, at best, guilty of the latter. Myeni, holder of a secondary school teacher’s diploma, is driving what is ostensibly a forceful empowerment agenda.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, through their lawyers, have demanded that the SAA board refrain from signing any agreement with BnP Capital for the sourcing of funds or make any payment to them for sourcing funds, as the procurement process was unlawful. Should SAA proceed with the agreement or make any payments, OUTA will take legal steps to ensure that public funds are not wasted on the grossly inflated charges of BnP.
In the ultimate reflection of arrogance, South African Airways this morning suspended from duty its Treasurer Cynthia Stimpel – cynically making the point this has “nothing to do” with her raising concerns about a proposed R256m plundering of the airline’s meagre resources. Stimpel’s objections followed her innocent inquiry to Absa about the fee proposed for a “Transaction Advisor” appointed by SAA chairman Duduzile Myeni.
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Pastor Evan Mawarire started the most subversive protest movement in Zimbabwe’s recent history by accident. He was fed up with the state of his nation, and decided to share his frustrations online. Turns out that he’s not the only frustrated Zimbabwean. In an in-depth interview, Mawarire tells SIMON ALLISON why Zimbabwe is broken – and how citizens can start fixing it.
John Kane-Berman’s is the most cogent, most insightful, most measured assessment I’ve read on Brexit. And being based in London, there have been plenty to choose from. Perhaps it’s because JKB – whose contribution has attracted hundreds of comments on Politicsweb where it was first published – is far enough away to see the wood from the trees. That’s something at which the frantic, over-dramatic UK media has failed spectacularly.
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Last week the South African Reserve Bank decided to hike interest rates by 25 basis points. It was a decision that left a bad taste in well-known economist Brian Kantor’s mouth. In the article below Kantor questions the bank’s theory of using inflation targeting as the measure in reaching its decision, saying the most important influence on inflation, the Rand, is beyond the influence of short term rates. An insightful read. – Stuart Lowman
South Africans can never say they haven’t been warned. Oxford don RW Johnson’s best selling book argues the country has between two and five years before it collapses. This morning an even more powerful voice rang louder alarm bells – on the international stage this time – with a brilliant assessment of the country’s travails. Global thought leading economist Martin Wolf concludes in today’s Financial Times of London that the country has three options – only one of which will avoid what he terms “an inevitable populist disaster.”
Socialists are dogged by short and selective memories. By any conceivable measure, Leninism-Marxism has brought nothing but economic hardship and misery wherever enforced. Yet socialists continue to hammer away at their command and control theories – grabbing at an ever reducing number of straws to argue the point. They’re about to lose one more of these with pending rejection by the citizenry of Venezuela, once the poster state of global socialist dreams. The oil price collapse exposed the late Hugo Chavez’s empire for the autocratic, mismanaged disaster which exiles like Moises Naim have long said it was. Virtually nine out of ten Venezuelans say the country is doing “badly or horribly”.
It was the ‘Rainbow’ era, Apartheid had been abolished, and change was in the air, the aim – full employment, eradicating poverty and addressing inequality. But as is said in Cees Bruggemans’ piece below, no era lasts forever. And enter the ‘Age of Decay’ where weaknesses intruded and the nation was no longer served, and sometime during the last ten years, this switch was made. And the manner in which President Jacob Zuma took over set the scene for change. But as the Rainbow era didn’t last long, so no era lasts forever but it will take great leadership to shift the tide. And hopefully an Age of Renewal will dawn, which is much needed. – Stuart Lowman
South African political leaders are in a time warp of Venezuelan proportions.1 While the rest of humanity has woken up to implications of a post-Quantitative Easing world, leaders in SA’s ruling tripartite alliance continue going about their business as normal. As the story below illustrates, they continue squabbling for a place at the rapidly emptying trough as though nothing has changed. President Jacob Zuma was dead wrong when predicting the ANC will rule until Christ’s Second Coming. The party needs a minor miracle to avoid getting a massive hiding in next year’s municipal elections. Its mismanagement of the economy and plundering of the national purse in the name of “21st Century Socialism” bears a striking resemblance to what has been happening in South America
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When economic historians look back on this stage of Africa’s development they are sure to highlight the destructive role of what FT columnist Martin Wolf this week described as “entrepreneurial politicians”. Public servants, particularly those who are empowered by voters to lead and direct them, are supposed to be driven by a desire to “serve” the “public”. Instead, in many parts of Africa, acquiring such a role is interpreted as a licence to plunder the public purse without accountability. The depth of this malaise is being illustrated during Pope Francis’s visit to East Africa. His humble example on his choice of transport offers much pause for thought.
http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2015/11/27/pope-blasts-africas-entrepreneurial-politicians-by-his-humble-example/
Consequences of economic mismanagement can be brutal. Just how brutal will become apparent for South Africa’s ruling elite as poorly considered decisions on agriculture created a ticking food price time bomb. Consequences for the regime are stark. It was higher food prices which sparked the Arab Spring, illustrating enormous political risks the ANC’s agricultural policies has exposed it to. In his masterpiece How Long Will SA Survive? Oxford don RW Johnson explains ANC thinking was based on a view that 30% of the country’s arable land needed to be urgently redistributed to dispossessed communities and small African farmers.
Irina Filatova is a Russian professor who moved to South Africa in 1992 when she joined the University of Durban-Westville, now part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In this fascinating interview with Alec Hogg, the two explore the communist movement in South Africa and how it ties in with the Soviet Union. Filatova says the ideological influence of the Communist Party on the ANC leadership cannot be disputed and is evident if one goes through the ANC documents. Filatova is an accomplished author with seven books and many other publications to her name. Her last book The Hidden Thread: Russia and South Africa in the Soviet Era explored relationships between South Africa and Soviet Russia and won the Recht Malan Prize for Best Non-Fiction book of 2014 at the Media 24 Literary Awards. – Stuart Lowman
Three and a half decades after his book with the same title predicted the fall of Apartheid by the mid 1990s, Rhodes Scholar, Oxford don, political scientist and historian RW Johnson answers the same pressing question with similarly direct conclusions. Listen now to this brutal expose' of an economy mismanaged and plundered to the point of bankruptcy by its Soviet-style political masters. If this bestseller were prescribed reading for every South African, its contents would spark a revolution.
Leading up to the 2016 South African Municipal Elections and the 20th year celebration of her theatre in Darling, Evita se Perron, Tannie Evita has committed herself to broadcasting a Sunday recap of the week's news, with the accent on Free Speech.
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MUCH attention is paid to the theatricality of parliament’s debating chamber, and when parliament resumes later this month the public will no doubt be treated to episodes of drama and comedy in equal measure. But this is not all there is to parliament. Inside its apparently boring and abstruse “oversight” mechanisms is another world, a second theatre, with its own insights to offer.
A couple of weeks ago, Biznews community member Michael McWilliams wrote an open letter to the ruling party, looking at ways to save the country as well as the party from doom and gloom. Michael has spent time conjuring up a follow up to that letter. This time he targets local government and ways to fix it. The problems are more complex and he gets into the nitty gritty rather than simply prescribe policy changes. Another must read. – Stuart Lowman
I WISH this column were not about the depressing newsmakers of our time: the Guptas, Jacob Zuma, the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, rampant corruption, state capture, political arrogance, political duplicity and all the related themes, including the shocking denial by South Africa’s leaders of the negative impact of their conduct on our country’s reputation.
DO NOT Urinate On The Wall, says the sign, followed by: By Order of The Military. Well, that would put me off completely. The military is a serious presence, at least in this part of Accra, dotted with camps and training schools and headquarters, and punctuated by the occasional billboard declaring the military to be “Civilian-friendly”.
With so much of the political posturing currently on display by the political players, it is sometimes missed that this year’s local government elections are in grave danger. The Tlokwe case, soon to be argued before the Constitutional Court, could reach a conclusion where judges decide it is not possible to hold a free and fair election in South Africa right now. It may not have seemed so just two weeks ago, when the Independent Electoral Commission submitted its papers, but the arguments submitted by the independent candidates who started this whole process are seriously strong. This is a Gordian Knot that will require all the wisdom of our Constitutional Court judges to untangle. By STEPHEN GROOTES.
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News KZN
Durban - Water has begun flowing through the taps of KwaDukuza (Stanger) homes after 32 days of being dry and residents believe it is thanks to a group of local businessmen who have cleared 70 illegal “dams” along the Umvoti River.
He had purportedly told the Pongola community that foreign nationals should be sent home.
Durban - A 20-year-old woman who tried to sell her baby on Gumtree has pleaded guilty to charges of human trafficking, money laundering and contravening the Children’s Act
Durban - The sale of two Lamborghinis – valued at R1.9 million each – helped finance vehicles for companies owned by controversial Durban businessman S’bu Mpisane
The victims are all from an SUV which overturned in the crash.
His arrest came after police were investigating a burglary at a school.
News - IRASA
Clr Izak Berg from the Independent Ratepayers Association of South Africa (Irasa) has bemoaned the actions of the Ekurhuleni city manager, Khaya Ngema, who he believes has cost the metro millions of rands in legal fees.
Although a special council meeting was called to give councillors a look at the report, the ANC leadership decided against it
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