Our own writing in the media

Another policy “own goal” for the struggling SA mining sector – BizNews.com, 21 January 2015

With all the excitement in oil markets, it’s easy to forget about other primary industries, like the mining industry that plays such a crucial role in the economy of South Africa. In this piece, Dr Anthea Jeffery of the IRR talks us through the latest policy developments in the mining sector, and how they have the potential to negatively affect the already-struggling industry. It’s sobering to think how quickly bad policy can eviscerate such a long-lived sector.

Are Malikane’s nationalisation pearls the jewels in Gigaba’s crown? - BizNews, 05 May 2017

Ferial Haffejee, editor of HuffPost SA, was at the BFLF conference where Malikane spoke. As she reports, his calls for nationalisation were enthusiastically applauded by those present. Yet the audience, as Haffejee writes, was not made up of ‘landless peasants’ or the ‘urban working poor’. Rather, it comprised ‘professionals, business owners, students, intellectuals and activists’, most of them well-dressed and seemingly well-heeled.

Our own writing in the media

Every year our analysts and policy experts, in promoting new ideas and policies, contribute a wide range of articles to newspapers across South Africa.

Back to the 1980s - Politicsweb, 16 October 2017

Recorded in its Monetary Policy Review published earlier this month, the statement amounts to a damning indictment of the management of the economy by the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The economy is "stagnant" despite "strong" global growth and easy financing options. Domestic growth has stalled because of "political and policy uncertainty" which has "depressed confidence". As a result, "investment is contracting" and potential growth is "very low".

BEE doesn’t work, but EED would – BizNews, 7 April 2016

In a speech last month the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said the government was ‘obsessed with empowering black South Africans’ and was sometimes ‘fanatical’ about it. It now planned to ‘intensify’ black economic empowerment (BEE), for it was ‘hell-bent on ensuring that blacks owned and managed the economy’. Added Mr Ramaphosa: ‘Those who don’t like this idea – tough for you. That is how we are proceeding.’