11 April 2018 - The majority judgment also cast doubt on the validity of the revised mining charter gazetted in 2010, as this was seemingly ultra vires (beyond the powers) of the mining minister under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002. It further ruled that a failure to comply with the mining charter – either as originally adopted in 2004, or as revised in 2010 – does not generally constitute an offence under the MPRDA.
John Kane-Berman says the industry needs to persuade South Africans of its undoubted importance.
This formula is to be found in draft regulations recently gazetted by Mr Nkwinti under the Property Valuation Act of 2014, which took effect on 1st August 2014. Under this Act, the Valuer General – a state official appointed by the minister – is responsible for ‘determining’ the value of all property identified for ‘land reform’ purposes.
THE government plans to do to farming what it has done to mining. In terms of legislation being processed through Parliament, all agricultural land is to be taken into the custodianship of the state "for the benefit of all South Africans".
24 January 2018 - A good showing in Davos could help get South Africa back on track. And so, as any number of media reports have stated, Team SA will be going to Davos to advance a positive view of South Africa’s future. Key to this – as an article in one of the Sunday papers put it – would be the ‘Cyril effect’.
3 December 2017- Mr Maimane went on to suggest that the most important difference between the DA and the African National Congress (ANC) was that the DA "will be able to actually implement these policies". He has got this exactly back to front. In the event that he becomes the next leader of the ANC, Mr Ramaphosa is far more likely to be able to implement growth (and other) policies than the DA. This is for the simple reason that an ANC led by Mr Ramaphosa is much more likely to win the 2019 national election than is the DA.
6 May 2018 - The said monster was the "disease" of anti-black racism that is supposedly to be found all over the country, supposedly typified by Vicky Momberg. Mr Makhanya said he found it hard to believe the IRR's finding that 77% of black respondents to a survey had said they had "never personally experienced racism". Where, he asked, did the IRR find these people?
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman argues that the propsed introduction of the National Health Insurance scheme is another example of the ANC's proclivity "to put the cart before the horse".
13 April 2018 - How much is enough? What do we need? When do our wants and ambitions become morally untenable? What is fair and equitable to all concerned? Can acquisition be justified against the backdrop of severe deprivation and extreme inequalities?
Far from the leopard changing its spots, what is slowly beginning to happen is that more people, the latest being Tutu, are waking up to the nature of the beast.
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.
How seriously must we take the recent discussion document on "the second transition" in which the African National Congress (ANC) reiterates its commitment to the "national democratic revolution"? Some of the comment has been dismissed as "alarmist" or "hysterical".
It is often stated that South Africa has good policies in place but the implentation of those policies is poor. Our CEO, John Kane-Berman, argues that the opposite is true: poor policies are abundant in South Africa.
IN SEPTEMBER 2013, Cyril Ramaphosa said at Wits University that starting wages in SA were higher than the relative productivity of new workers, so companies incurred a "loss" when hiring inexperienced workers. New entrants to the labour market were effectively locked out.
How the African National Congress (ANC) handles Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's Secure in Comfort report into the Nkandla affair is likely to confirm beyond reasonable doubt one of the key differences between financial corruption under National Party (NP) and corruption under ANC rule.
John Kane-Berman says that the reaffirmation and reiteration of Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) and Affirmative Action in the National Development Plan is nothing short of madness.
John Kane-Berman has resumed his column in Business Day. The edition of 15th February 2010 the follows below:
The Government has long been trying to impose the use of national demographics in the setting of racial targets under the Employment Equity Act of 1998 (the EE Act). Now it seems quietly to have achieved this goal via the revised black economic empowerment (BEE) codes of good practice that took effect on 1st May 2015.
Head of Policy Research at the IRR, Dr. Anthea Jeffery underlines the crucial pitfalls that can be found in the recently cast Expropriation Bill of 2015 – a document that should, by way of aligning itself to our Constitution, be a protection for the people of our nation as much as it is for the government.
Net foreign direct investment (FDI) into South Africa was negative in 2014, with outward flows exceeding inward ones by some R13bn. Moreover, as Business Day reports, in the first quarter of 2015. “inward FDI recorded a negative R22bn… as foreign direct investors in South Africa pulled money out”.
