Letter: Ramaphosa’s challenge - Business Day

By Frans Cronje 

Cyril Ramaphosa’s Achilles heel in Davos will be the governing party’s resolution on amending the property clause of the Constitution, to which he has committed himself. It matters little what other reforms are introduced under his leadership if property rights are at the same time to be diluted to a point where the state can seize property without compensation.

Your correspondent Kuseni Dlamini (Ramaphosa has his work cut out at Davos to shift mindset of investors, January 19) is quite right when he says the Davos mission must be to "assure current and prospective investors about policy certainty" and "punt SA’s growing commitment to the rule of law".

But both assurances will hinge on convincing investors that property and assets will remain safe from indiscriminate seizure — a formidable communications challenge when Ramaphosa and his party have made such strong statements to the contrary.

Frans Cronje is a scenario planner and CEO at Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank that promotes political and economic freedom. 

Read letter at Business Day here