16 January 2018 - The “Buffalo Man” is a moniker for Cyril Ramaphosa that is likely to stick, not only because of his investments in rare game, but because his maiden January 8 statement sets the stage for a buffalo market as a feature of his administration.
18 April 2018 - One of the big items at the box office next year is certain to be the live action remake of Disney's The Lion King.
My ervaring van skryf vir die Afrikaanse pers is dat, sodra genoem word wit Suid-Afrikaners is deesdae ekonomies nog meer vooruitstrewend, is daar ’n woedende reaksie.
By the end of this month – less than a fortnight away – the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) plans to gazette the final version of the draft Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Regulations (the regulations) it published in mid-February 2016 for comment within 30 days.
Our job is to cut through forced consensus, fear and place policy issues in the public domain. We exist to test the most cherished of opinions where they impact on the decisions of our government, and challenge well-funded lobby groups. Where it prevents the South African government from taking sound energy and economic decisions, the global climate lobby is a hindrance to our development.
John Kane-Berman says that what started with excrement thrown on a statue, has ended with R300m of damage to property.
FEW things in the year ahead will be more fascinating than how e-tolling plays out.
Speech by John Kane-Berman at the launch of African Students for Liberty, University of Pretoria, March 16 2015: Rebirth of the liberal tradition on the campuses of South Africa's universities.
Irrespective of how long Jacob Zuma may still occupy the Presidency, South Africa needs to think now of how to meet the challenges it will face in the post-Zuma era. The most obvious of these is to move the country back on to a trajectory of economic growth.
Will the ANC dump Zuma? Until it does so, it is unlikely to reinvent itself.
Mr Zuma is a consummate chess player and has accounted for this eventuality, and the analysts who say Mr Zuma will be removed by Parliament are likely to be wrong. We expect the ANC to put its immediate emphasis on unity, which means the party is unlikely to give its MPs the go-ahead for such a divisive move. Even if a dissident group did break away and join the opposition in voting Mr Zuma out, this would immediately see the Zuma-aligned speaker of parliament, Ms Baleka Mbete, take over the functions of the President. Mr Zuma would remain leader of the ANC and his party supporters would quickly purge those dissident MPs who voted him out. Witness the six seemingly-courageous senior party leaders who rolled over to
Amid economic and political volatility, a series of books forecasts a range of scary and not-so scary possibilities
While the demand by the protester for 0% fees is entitled to complete sympathy from the public, a real concern goes to the elements of undemocratic behaviour that are increasingly playing out in the protests.
The Institute of Race Relations report on immigrants in South Africa has for the most part been accurately reported as a glimpse into the economic lives of South Africa’s immigrants; the odds they face and the success they have forged despite, but perhaps because of, hardship. However there is often someone willing to take up the role of a sleuth with a preconceived narrative, combing the report for words that will make his analysis stick. By GWEN NGWENYA for the South African Institute of Race Relations. 4
18 January 2018 - Where freedom has been fought for and won, it is ironic that choices are so often reduced rather than expanded by the very environment that is meant to guarantee them
John Kane-Berman wrote in Business Day today that, "Virtually absent from the election manifesto of the African National Congress (ANC) is explicit reference to the national democratic revolution (NDR), long the organisation’s overriding strategic objective. The NDR is no secret, for it infuses policy documents published for ANC conferences."
A key issue here is property rights. The protection of private property has long been a sticking point in South Africa’s politics. Prior to 1994, the liberation movements envisaged a post-apartheid government seizing large parts of the economy, and wielding them for the common good. Land would ‘be shared among those who work it’, and large industry would be transferred to ‘the people as a whole’ – in a word, nationalised. ‘Property rights’ represented a capricious mechanism to retain an unjust status quo.
10 January 2018 - As a policy direction, expropriation without compensation rests on the premise that the failure of South Africa’s land reform programme has substantively been the consequence of resistance, both direct and indirect. Since 1994, only around 10% of agricultural land has been transferred out of white ownership through state programmes. In this narrative, the state has had to negotiate a labyrinth deliberately constructed to stifle transformation. This includes uncooperative property owners, malicious and venal price inflation, these having been enabled by compromises made in the writing of the Constitution – a "compromise tilted heavily in favour of forces against change", as former Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi once put it. In some quarters, the very notion of private ownership is suspect.
The same forces that are sinking the Zupta project will in a similar fashion save the mining sector. At the heart of it are the country’s strong institutions. Coleman alluded to these when he praised SA’s "sound Constitution (and) strong judiciary" and referred to the unity on the part of business, labour and civil society.
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman argues that it is not only the media that is at risk from the ruling party.
