18 August - The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) intends to finalise its draft mining charter within the next two months. Thus far, it shows little sign of compromising on proposed BEE rules that raise the risk of mining in South Africa into the stratosphere, notes the IRR in a new issue of its @Liberty policy bulletin published on 16 August.
17 August - The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) says that the draft mining charter it put forward in April this year is needed to align BEE obligations in mining with the generic codes. However, the draft charter often goes way beyond what the generic codes require, notes the IRR in a new issue of its @Liberty policy bulletin published yesterday.
The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) says it is seeking to ‘re-imagine the mining industry’ via the draft reviewed mining charter it unexpectedly unveiled in April 2016.
John Kane-Berman says 3 August election results are a repudiation of those who seek to polarise SA on racial lines.
As long as we assume that the purpose of a school is to ensure that the knowledge in the minds of teachers is ‘banked’ in the minds of the school children we are “eating our children”.
As the outcome of last week’s local government election shows, South Africans in large numbers have turned their backs on the ANC1. This means they are no longer the ‘prisoners of history’.
John Kane-Berman says the party's electoral setback is even more profound than the numbers suggest.
08 August 2016 - According to the July edition of Fast Facts published by the IRR this month (August) the non-commercial herd of cattle accounted for just over 40% of the total cattle herd in 2015.
5 August 2016 - The IRR says that the performance of the African National Congress (ANC) in the recent local elections raises the spectre of that party losing its national majority in the 2019 national and provincial elections.
Van Heerden says the youth should take note of what happened in Britain and make sure they put pen to paper and hold political parties more accountable.
John Kane-Berman says a less ideologically confused DA would be more cautious about depicting itself as Madiba's political heir.
“Taxation without representation is tyranny” is the famous cri de coeur uttered in about 1761 presaging the American War of Independence.
Louis van der Merwe says that what matters most in the ecology of learning is expanding the competency of teachers.
Much as one admires Richard Poplak’s racy style, there was a worrying lack of substance in his piece about the EFF’s Floyd Shivambu the other day. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take up a spade and shovel some facts into the vacuum.
John Kane-Berman asks why new BEE rules are being pushed that will further inflate state procurement costs.
Sara Gon says that here, as in the West, incivility kills off rational debate and discussion.
Draft preferential procurement regulations recently gazetted by the National Treasury suggest that Pravin Gordhan’s department has finally been captured by the black business lobby.
John Kane-Berman asks whether Mantashe & Co. are suddenly concerned with media freedom, or is there another motive at play?
THE South African Post Office (Sapo) has correctly dismissed 228 employees for embarking on an unprotected strike in June. The unlawful strike was organised by the quaintly named Influential Information and Communication Union of SA (IICUOSA), to raise "concerns about the parastatal’s decision to suspend its secretary-general Gibson Ramoadi".
The public responses (and social media comments suggests that they are widespread) by some black people to the recent racist actions of the likes of André Slade and other like-minded people are both irrational and baffling.
Hlaudi Motsoeneng looms so large in the SABC crisis that we pay little attention to the SABC’s board to which he is accountable.
Phumlani M. Majozi says govt control lies at the root of the problem.
Employment figures released on Monday show that the mining sector shed 4 000 jobs in the first three months of the year. A further 30 000 mining jobs were lost in the last six months of 2015.
5 July 2016 - A report published by the IRR has found an increase in the cancer death rate for South Africa for both men and women since 1994.
John Kane-Berman says the real mistake was to go into the EU in the first place.
Policymakers need to understand that the country’s best interests and those of the mining industry are the same.
Sara Gon says the university management's decision does not make financial or institutional sense.
In cities, townships, on main traffic routes in and around them, taxi ranks and other places where people gather in numbers, there is a massive, growing market and a free enterprise system which provides jobs and a livelihood for more than two million people.
John Kane-Berman says Jacob Zuma is out of his depth when it comes to trying to curb violence.
Mining is vital to South Africa’s economy – and has been for decades. Historically, the mining sector helped equip the country with by far the best electricity, transport, and water infrastructure on the African continent.
Shifting from BEE (for the few) to EED (for the many) in the vital mining sector