17 February 2018 - On the hard substance of his speech, there was little to differentiate this State of the Nation Address from any over the last decade. It was short on facts, details, quantifiable outcomes or hard policy decisions.
Latest from the IRR
What a truly ‘radical’ SONA would sound like
16 February 2018 – The IRR argues that Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration should recognise the importance of property rights to a healthy, prosperous society.
16 February 2018 - At the time, the reformist view – which we likened to the experience of the verligte Afrikaners – was broadly rubbished as being outside the bounds of possibility. While the scenario we have subsequently lived through was certainly not the upside one – we continued to hold out the possibility of an ANC reformation, forced by political and economic realities, in two books published on South Africa's future, the first in 2014 and the second in 2017.
16 February 2018 - Ramaphosa came to power in December with the most narrow of majorities in his party and quite possibly, at first, a minority on its national executive committee.
16 February 2018 - The leadership change in the ruling party and the government has generally been welcomed by the local and international business communities as an opportunity to put South Africa on a high-growth and developmentally orientated course. However, this sentiment is likely to prove fickle if the government commits to a course of action that will undermine the economic foundations of the country.
Zuma’s departure strengthens prospect of economic recovery
15 February 2018 – IRR chief executive Frans Cronje believes President Jacob Zuma’s resignation could herald a recovery in South Africa’s economic growth rate to between 1.7% and 1.9% this year.
15 February 2018 - The looming judicial review of the government’s controversial Mining Charter this month sharpens attention on what works, and what doesn’t, in stimulating an industry capable of attracting investment, creating jobs and pulling up the growth rate.
14 February 2018 - Renowned water scientist Dr Anthony Turton adds that debate around water in South Africa has become so politicised that the realities of hydrology are often subordinated to the dictates of ideology – part of which is a suspicion of private enterprise. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this was on display in Parliament.
13 February 2018 - South Africa's bleak employment outlook underscores the pressing need for the country to revisit its policy on mining with a view to generating investment-led growth in one of the few sectors of the economy with the potential to absorb large numbers of unskilled labour.
IRR warning on suicide mortality rate
12 February 2018 – IRR analyst Tawanda Makombo examines the issue of South Africa’s suicide mortality rate.
12 February 2018 - In an open society with a free and critical press and vigilant NGOs, there is no excuse for government officials not to know what is going on around them. It was no excuse under the previous government and it is no excuse under the present one.
12 February 2018 - "Most people would seem to believe the last 20 years have hardly revolutionised their lives."
11 February 2018 - Much has been made of the apparently paltry landholdings of black South Africans, at 1.2% of farmland and 7% of formally registered urban land. Taken at face value, this suggests that neither government’s land reform initiatives, nor market-based transactions, have had any noticeable impact on black people’s asset base
9 February 2018 - On the strength of his pro-investment approach, Cyril Ramaphosa’s elevation is being viewed with hope – and it comes at a propitious time.
The EFF’s Internal Revolution
8 February 2018 - ‘The EFF’s Internal Revolution’, the latest report from the IRR, documents the extraordinary turnover rate of MPs inside the party’s national caucus, and examines its organizational culture.
7 February 2018 - If South Africa’s ever-increasing demands born of post-1994 successes are not met, the ruling ANC may soon find itself in the same trouble it was in just a few weeks ago – and for the same reasons.
7 February 2018 - "The whole success of what South Africa has set out to achieve over the past 28 years will be determined by its economy
South Africa, State of the Nation in 2018: Prognosis for Reform
7 February 2018 – “South Africa, State of the Nation in 2018: Prognosis for Reform”, the latest report from the Centre for Risk Analysis at the IRR, is a timely analysis of the fundamental steps that will be needed to convert the country’s newfound optimism at the ascendancy of Cyril Ramaphosa into the substantive and measurable gains South Africa so desperately needs.
6 February 2018 - Meeting popular expectations is essentially a challenge of labour market access. If you conduct a polling exercise and ask South Africans what they most want, what is necessary above all else to improve living standards and build thriving communities, the answer, every time, is employment. Many analysts and politicians argue that South Africa has experienced two decades of jobless growth – but this is
Mining and People: The Impact of Mining on the South African Economy and Living Standards
6 February 2018 - “Mining and People: The Impact of Mining on the South African Economy and Living Standards”, latest @Liberty report from the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), is a comprehensive survey of mining’s critical role in the economy and in the lives of people, both in mining communities and far beyond them.
5 February 2018 - The Nazi-era Eichmanns of the world take human fallibility to frightening depths,
4 February 2018 - To see expropriation without compensation as a solution is to miss the point entirely. The constitutional requirement to pay compensation for land acquired has not been a hindrance to land reform.
4 February 2018 - The surest way to demonstrate one's politically correct credentials and signal one's virtue these days is to bewail supposedly mounting "inequality". Given its view that capitalism is a "crime against humanity", it was only to be expected that Oxfam should make a meal of inequality and demand that it be remedied by "more tax justice", whatever that may mean.
3 February 2018 - In the light of increased capital flows, rand strengthening and an upwardly revised economic growth rate following Cyril Ramaphosa’s election as ANC leader, the challenge will be to rein in exuberance, and not to allow improved sentiment to lead to consolidation complacency and an over-estimation of the extent to which improved sentiment will broaden the tax base through job creation, or lead to higher private sector wage increases or bonuses.
Will ‘Ramaphosa effect’ save SA from taxing itself into prosperity?
2 February 2018 - Will ‘Ramaphosa effect’ save SA from taxing itself into prosperity?, the January edition of Fast Facts from the Centre for Risk Analysis at the IRR, provides a comprehensive picture of taxpayers and tax revenues collected.
2 February 2018 - A conference on expropriation without compensation – which deputy minister of rural development and land reform Mcebisi Skwatsha says is to be convened by the ruling ANC – would serve merely to push South Africa down a fruitless blind alley while avoiding the key reasons why land reform has failed to live up to its expectations.
1 February 2018 - Poverty, in the conventional view, explains why township schools are at the bottom of the class – but the exceptions prove otherwise.
31 January 2018 - Capitec and the South African Reserve Bank responded strongly and swiftly to Viceroy’s report - but whatever the veracity of certain details or one's opinion on Capitec’s business model, there is much about Viceroy’s modus operandi that triggers alarm bells of an attempt to provoke market panic, even if not an attempt to short and distort.
31 January 2018 - ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has won many plaudits for insisting on the immediate replacement of the Eskom board, inducing President Jacob Zuma to appoint the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, promising the prosecution of those implicated, and assuring the World Economic Forum at Davos that South Africa has turned over a new leaf and is open for business once again
ANC voters want Ramaphosa and “pro-business” policies - IRR report
30 January 2018 – Distinguished political analyst R W Johnson provides an “unrivalled picture of the country’s mood on the cusp of a great change”.