’n Gewilde storie in ons land is dat die koloniale bewind die begin van vele van Suid-Afrika se probleme was. Pres. Jacob Zuma het onlangs aan die raad van tradisionele leiers gesê kolonialisme “is die “bron van die armoede en ongelykheid wat die skandelike kenmerk van ons nasie geword het en ’n struikelblok vorm vir ’n toekoms van gedeelde voorspoed”.
GROWTH in demand for all sorts of household and even luxury goods and services testifies to the rise of SA’s black middle class.
A week is a long time in politics. In South Africa a day is a long time in politics, but an issue has been bubbling under and now is swirling about our ears. It is a phenomenon over which the government has no control: the worst drought in over 30 years.
Many years ago South African Airways used to run an advertisement which stated, "We didn't invent flying, we just perfected it". A family in Saxonworld would be entitled to make a similar claim today: "We didn't invent state capture, we just perfected it."
Head of the Institute of Race Relations takes issue with a claim published by the RDM.
Frans Cronje outlines what he believes to be the solution to our crisis.
John Kane-Berman, the CEO of the Institute, says that unions such as Cosatu and Sadtu "are fond of posturing as revolutionaries. But when it comes to opening up opportunities to the black jobless, they are the most reactionary force on the block."
16 February 2018 - At the time, the reformist view – which we likened to the experience of the verligte Afrikaners – was broadly rubbished as being outside the bounds of possibility. While the scenario we have subsequently lived through was certainly not the upside one – we continued to hold out the possibility of an ANC reformation, forced by political and economic realities, in two books published on South Africa's future, the first in 2014 and the second in 2017.
A related point is that government expenditure as a proportion of GDP has increased from 26.4% in 1994/95 to a projected 33% in 2017/18. By international standards this is a very high level. Our data on the subject extends back to the 1960s and the current level is the highest on record.
The weasel clause that was taken out of an earlier version of the Promotion of Investment Bill of 2015 (the Investment Bill) has effectively reappeared in the latest version of the Expropriation Bill of 2015 (the Expropriation Bill).
Frans Cronje responds to Barney Pityana's article in the Sunday Independent.
John Kane-Berman, CEO of the Institute, argues that labour legislation is keeping the unemployment rate so high.
Notes of Frans Cronje’s address to the Johannesburg Mining Indaba on 05 October 2017.
These giant vessels have played a major role in one of the great success stories of recent years, enabling production of various goods to be relocated from rich to poor countries. As a result, hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere in East Asia have been able to start working themselves out of poverty - so much so that rising wages in some of these countries have caused production to be shifted to even poorer places, such as Vietnam.
Our research has long revealed a close correlation between economic growth, job creation, family income levels, and confidence in the government. Between 1994 and 2003 South Africa averaged GDP growth rates of around 3%. Between 2004 and 2007 that number picked up to over 5%.
6 February 2018 - Meeting popular expectations is essentially a challenge of labour market access. If you conduct a polling exercise and ask South Africans what they most want, what is necessary above all else to improve living standards and build thriving communities, the answer, every time, is employment. Many analysts and politicians argue that South Africa has experienced two decades of jobless growth – but this is
You cannot be a supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) without favouring state capture any more than you could previously be a supporter of the National Party (NP) without being in favour of apartheid.
21 February 2018 - Appointing a new, capable mining minister who has the confidence of the industry is one of the vital steps newly inaugurated President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to take to give credence to his thinking that mining is not a sunset, but a sunrise sector. Party stalwart and former trade unionist, Gwede Mantashe, got that role in the latest cabinet reshuffle.
These are all issues on which the media have generally put out a distorted message, downplaying key facts while repeatedly putting forward a flawed and misleading analysis.
"Nationalism in any shape or form is a cancer that should be eliminated..."
