Must he be taken seriously, however? Flip Buys, chairman of the Solidarity movement, recently pointed out that Mr Malema had taken a heavy beating in the nationwide municipal elections in August, and that his protest march early in November had been a failure. "Ranting and raving" was his only weapon. Therefore it was best not to panic.
Latest from the IRR
The “Coffingate” video shows two middle-aged, white Afrikaans men threatening a cowering young black man with death for trespassing by forcing him into a make-shift coffin, and threatening to douse it with petrol and set it alight.
These are all issues on which the media have generally put out a distorted message, downplaying key facts while repeatedly putting forward a flawed and misleading analysis.
Poor carry brunt of SA’s water pollution burden – IRR report
15 November 2016 - The IRR has published a new policy paper on water pollution in South Africa and the impact that such pollution has on poor households.
According to a recent report by the parliamentary budget office, average electricity tariffs went up in real terms by 170% between 2007 and 2015. The retiring head of electricity regulation at Nersa, Thembani Bukula, said that if Eskom improved efficiencies,
The definition of "hate speech" goes so far beyond what most people would regard as "hate speech" that it recalls the definition of "terrorist activities" in the Terrorism Act of 1967. That act defined those activities so widely that they included "embarrassing the administration of the affairs of the state", causing "substantial finan
Life in South Africa much better than in 1994 – Think tank report
8 November 2016 - The IRR has released a report titled Life in South Africa: Reasons for Hope, that sets out the social and economic progress our country has made since 1994. The report found progress in areas ranging from the economy to crime, education, healthcare and living standards.
You cannot be a supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) without favouring state capture any more than you could previously be a supporter of the National Party (NP) without being in favour of apartheid.
There’s a tragic-comic element to the #FeesMustFall protests playing itself out as the academic year comes to an end. A group of high-minded young adults appropriated to themselves the pursuit of a demand that they had almost no chance of achieving
The founding ideals of a post-apartheid South Africa are under serious threat as the State slides into lawlessness. This according to the key findings of a report published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in Johannesburg.
Going off the Rails: The Slide Towards the Lawless South African State
02 November 2016 - The founding ideals of post-apartheid South Africa are under serious threat as the state slides into lawlessness. This is the key finding of a report published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in Johannesburg this week.
Irrespective of how long Jacob Zuma may still occupy the Presidency, South Africa needs to think now of how to meet the challenges it will face in the post-Zuma era. The most obvious of these is to move the country back on to a trajectory of economic growth.
Our reading was of a government fiddling, without a plan. There were no announcements on structural reforms, only the now familiar commitments to more taxes and austerity and the need to work together. But you cannot grow an economy out of trouble by taxing its productive sectors more and spending less money. Nor is t
The South African Treasury says that its proposed excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is intended to lower sugar consumption and obesity rates. It has not shown any intention to offset the revenue that will be generated from the SSB tax by lowering or eliminating other consumer taxes. If the excise is not in fact
To stimulate economic growth, the ANC needs to protect property rights, promote employment, and lighten the BEE burden. Instead, the Department of Mineral Resources continues to threaten mining titles under proposed mining legislation and the draft mining charter
Since then, the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have perfected the technique of using smear campaigns in the media to undermine their opponents.
If the top prosecutor in any country ruled by law charged its finance minister with fraud and theft one's shock would be tempered by confidence that the prosecutor had a watertight case. If, for example, the outgoing public protector, Thuli Madonsela, had been the one laying charges against Pravin Gordhan this week, that would have b
No health care service can be ‘free’, and the overall costs of implementing the NHI will undoubtedly be high. Just how high is difficult to tell, as the White Paper on the NHI published in December 2015 lacks necessary detail on the medical benefits to be provided.
Gordhan charge shows rise of new right wing – IRR policy paper
12 October 2016 - Against the background of the criminal charge brought against the Minister of Finance, Mr Pravin Gordhan, the IRR has released a policy paper titled The Rise of the New Right: South Africa’s Road to 2024 on the prospects for a forced, quite authoritarian, economic reform process in South Africa.
SA is once again flirting with mine nationalisation. The ANC Youth League has come back to this demand, while former Congress of South African Trade Unions president Zwelinzima Vavi thinks this intervention would meet activist demands for free university education.
Although the demand for free higher education still dominates discussion of the crisis at South African universities, the issue is no longer that but one of law and order. In particular, it is whether universities are willing and able to ensure that students who wish to attend lectures or write exams are able to do so in the face of disruption, threat, and violence.
South Africa’s mining industry remains in the doldrums, having recorded an overall loss of R37-billion in 2015. The persistent malaise in mining stems partly from depressed commodity prices, juxtaposed against rising input costs. But bad mining policy also bears much of the blame.
Anthea Jeffery explains how we can make the most of our mineral wealth.
Botswana example can save SA mining industry – think-tank report
04 October 2016 - South Africa’s mining industry is in deep trouble but could be saved if it followed the example of Botswana - says the IRR in a policy paper on the urgent need for mining law reform, published in @Liberty today. According to IRR research, South Africa has enormous mineral wealth but is not using this as well as its Botswana neighbour is using its more limited mineral resources.
John Kane-Berman says the industry needs to persuade South Africans of its undoubted importance.
IT IS common to hear anti-mining activists suggesting that the South African mining industry is exploitative and that it fails to contribute any real social and economic benefits to South Africa. The facts tell a very different story.
In an open letter to the mining minister earlier this month, the ANC Youth League revived its earlier demands for mine nationalisation, saying there had long been a ‘strategic need for the nationalisation of the mines’.
Like strikers, the students have the constitutional right to protest. The right only extends, however, to the person making the decision to protest. No one who decides to protest may disrupt a lecture, threaten or force someone to protest.
Young people are a powder keg primed to explode - IRR report
27 September 2016 - The IRR has released an issue of Fast Facts on the socio-economic circumstances of young people.
Sara Gon questions Panyaza Lesufi's conduct, and the media's rush to judgement, in the outrage over school hair rules.