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.
Our own writing in the media
3 May 2018 - Mantashe has decided to go back to court to contest the declaratory order obtained by the Chamber of Mines three weeks ago. Although that decision has been most widely reported for upholding the ‘once empowered always empowered principle’, Mantashe seems to be protesting a different aspect of the judgment – its assertion that the charter is not legally binding on mineral rights holders.
19 April 2018 - The mining industry needs a minister who doesn’t fiddle or insist on micro-managing its every move
19 February 2018 - It’s a marvel how things change, that to be a Zuma might, implicitly, trump being a Verwoerd. Both men, as it happens, represent a continuum of sorts: the truth about SA, recently addressed by distinguished political analyst RW Johnson, that we are a nation obsessed with Leaders with a capital L.
Sara Gon responds to Suraya Dadoo's defence of that organisation and her attack on Israel.
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.
When South Africa transitioned into democracy in 1994, socio-economic conditions were disheartening, especially amongst Blacks. Nelson Mandela’s democratic government faced an enormous challenge in eradicating the legacy of apartheid and improving the lives of millions of South Africans.
Millions of South Africans are currently held back by bad schooling, poor housing, and failing health care. Yet state expenditure in these three spheres totals some R570bn in this financial year alone, far exceeding what most other developing countries spend.
According to Treasury’s report, about 6.5m people currently belong to occupational retirement funds. Of these members, 67% are black African, 12% are ‘coloured’, 4% are Indian, and 17% are white. Equivalent figures for RA fund members are not provided, but the demographic spread may be much the same.
At the same time, empowerment policy as practised is increasingly coming to serve as a tool of wealth extraction for a politically connected elite. More and more, the recent Mining Charter being a prime example, we see a pattern of policy makers using harsh regulatory mechanisms, passed in the supposed interests of transformation or redress, to extract wealth from private sector companies.
In his regular column in Business Day, the Institute's CEO, John Kane-Berman, argues that there is more at stake than press freedom and the right of the public to know the latest news on government malfeasance. Sooner or later the courts will be drawn into the fight.
It is all too easy to criticise governments. However, there is an example where the government is due credit, mainly because it shows how things can be done. This is the successful implementation of a nationwide HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programme that has come to light most recently at the 19th International AIDS Conference held in Washington DC.
Die ANC is in ’n oorlog gewikkel. As ’n mens die bewysstukke saamvoeg, bestaan die ANC nou uit twee breë kampe wat ons as die linker- en regtervleuel van die party beskryf. Ons bronne is nie onberispelik nie, maar ons is daarvan oortuig dat die ontleding hieronder grotendeels akkuraat is.
24 January 2018 - “The school's Afrikaans-only language policy was previously rejected by the education department”, and that “Afrikaans was a language that symbolised ‘sorrow and tears to the majority of those (of) whom it was not their mother tongue’”.
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.
Neither Du Plessis nor her use of pantypreneurs in its particular context was remotely racist.
Cilliers Brink questions the lack of outrage over the 'cash for jobs' scandal.
The Institute's research manager, Lucy Holborn, says that feelings of persecution by some Afrikaners in South Africa are not supported by the facts.
14 March 2018 - The EFF’s involvement in Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s appointment was risible, but, as ever, it doesn’t get called on it.
The previous government, as this column observed last week citing a remark by James Myburgh, was not "hallucinogenic" about communist penetration of the African National Congress (ANC).