The risk of the new minimum wage is that it is going to reduce levels of labour market absorption and participation while raising inflation and undermining entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Our own writing in the media
The IRR's CEO, John Kane-Berman, warns that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) must resist the State's efforts to interfere with them.
The government claims that its proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system will reduce the costs of health care and provide all South Africans with ‘quality’ health services that are free at the point of delivery.
Sara Gon on how Wits' nine measures are an act of desperation.
Our considered view is that the Zuma exit is likely to be a far more orderly and less dramatic departure – staged over the next 18 months – than the sudden once off announcement some analysts anticipated for this evening.
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’.
Anlaysis of South Africa's economic slump rightly identifies falling commodity prices as a key external driver of this country's weak GDP numbers.
Fake news was supposedly invented by the likes of Donald Trump, the British public relations firm Bell Pottinger, and everyone in the United Kingdom campaigning for that country to quit the European Union. In fact, of course, fake news, lies, propaganda,
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman, the Chief Executive of the Institute, argues that, "the violence that erupted after the Soweto shootings in 1976 showed there were issues far bigger than imposing Afrikaans as a language of instruction. So also, the Marikana shootings on 16th August have brought a host of issues to the fore."
Sipho Seepe wrote in Business Day this morning that, "Rumours that the NPA might consider dropping the charges against African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma invited predictable responses. Opposition parties came out guns blazing. Such a course would destroy their main artillery against the ANC. Editorials joined the hysteria, proclaiming the end of civilisation as we know it."
Following a period of portfolio realignment and consolidation.
“ 'n Klein familiesaak sal 'n kwart van hul onderneming aan 'n swart vennoot moet oorhandig."
SOME wit on Twitter said Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s announcement on university fees on Monday amounted to him throwing universities under a bus. It wasn’t so much a bus as an oncoming train.
On Monday 5th September hundreds of “veterans” of the ANC’s people’s war gathered outside Luthuli House to intimidate and attack around 80 protesters demanding the recall of President Jacob Zuma, the resignation of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), and the holding of a consultative conference before the end of 2016. The protesters blame Mr Zuma and the NEC for the ruling party’s poor performance in the recent local government elections.
Anthea Jeffery, the Institute's Head of Special Research, argues that the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill will impose a raft of unrealistic expectations on an already embattled mining industry in South Africa.
Sara Gon says that freedom of speech does not obviate from exercising care in what one says or writes.
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.
You don’t have to be a tech geek to be aware of the chaos that cybercriminals are wreaking in this country. There are numerous local examples — from the recent spate of WhatsApp scams to the R42m stolen from the Postbank in 2012.
John Kane-Berman wrote in Business Day today that, "To his credit, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma acknowledges public anxiety, which his predecessor did not always do. "Everywhere I went the issue of crime was raised.... When the people talk to me I can see the fear in their eyes and hear the desperation in their voices."
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman, CEO of the Institute, looks at whether South Africa is headed in the footsteps of Greece.