Research & Policy Briefs have evolved into the @Liberty reports. Click here to view them.
Annual South African mirror briefing by John Kane-Berman, the Chief Executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations in Pretoria on 1st November, Johannesburg on 5th November, and Cape Town on 7th November 2013.
Major changes to employment equity and black economic empowerment (BEE) rules are soon to take effect. Far from providing redress for apartheid’s wrongs, these will damage the poor majority by imposing penalties and overall compliance costs high enough to drive many small firms out of operation. This will reduce jobs, deter entrepreneurship and investment, and further hobble the economy. Apartheid’s victims would be far better served by putting economic growth before redistribution, as a different way of dividing up the existing economic pie will never be enough to meet the needs of a growing population.
The Democratic Alliance has thrown its weight behind the Employment Equity Amendment Bill of 2012. This has five specific implications for the country, the Western Cape, and the party itself.
Address by John Kane-Berman, chief executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR), to a "Freedom Seminar" held in conjunction with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Johannesburg, 17 October 2013.
The launch of the ‘political party platform’ Agang in February 2012 has shifted Dr Mamphela Ramphele from being a commentator on South African politics to being an active participant in the months leading up to the national election in 2014. This article draws together some of Dr Ramphele’s views on issues affecting South Africa and Africa.
In a speech to the Education Colloquium of the Democratic Alliance caucus on 15 May 2013, Professor Hermann Giliomee, vice-president of the South African Institute of Race Relations, put forward some lessons to be learnt from history by opposition parties as they reposition themselves for the prospect of power around the corner.
According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Licensing of Business Bill (the Bill) is intended to ‘promote the right to freedom of trade, occupation, and profession’. It is also supposed to ‘encourage a conducive environment that promotes compliance and sustainability of businesses’. [Section 2, Bill]
South African Institute of Race Relations submission to the Department of Mineral Resources regarding the Draft Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Bill of 2012 (full text).
At no point since 1994 has the Institute confronted more angst and pessimism about the future of the country than we saw in 2012. At briefing after briefing we are asked if South Africa is headed the way of the north-African uprisings or Zimbabwe. The same sentiment is reflected in newspaper columns and reports both here and abroad. Perhaps it is partly the Institute’s contrarian nature, but in many respects we are now more optimistic about the future than at any point in the last decade.
Not much is known about the deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC) and the country, Kgalema Motlanthe. On most matters he is guarded and unclear and sometimes contradictory. This article looks at some of the policy stances he has taken in the past.
This Research and Policy Brief paper seeks to determine the extent to which farmers are uniquely vulnerable to armed attack in South Africa. It draws comparisons between the rate of attack on farmers and their families to that of other citizens in South Africa.
In his address to the South African Institute of Race Relations in his capacity as its president Professor Jonathan Jansen examines what the state of education tells us about the state of South Africa.
In the aftermath of the Marikana shootings of 16th August 2012 the Institute has been confronted with a number of questions about the reasons and long-term implications of the violence. We have decided to republish an article jointly authored by the Institute's current Chief Executive Officer on the 25th of June 1976 as many of the points made in that article remain relevant to our current context. The article below appeared in the Financial Mail ten days after the police shootings and the explosions they caused in Soweto and elsewhere on 16th June 1976. It was written by John Kane-Berman and George Palmer, then respectively labour editor and editor of the Financial Mail. The Institute had meanwhile tried, to no avail, to warn the National Party government of the tension building up in Soweto as a result of the school language policy.
Overall the white paper makes an important first step in acknowledging the problem of family breakdown in South Africa, its causes and some of its effects. However, the white paper lacks concrete proposals that can be implemented by various government departments to address the problems identified. Moreover, it fails to acknowledge the role individual responsibility, norms, and attitudes can play in building more stable families, albeit with assistance and incentives from the Government.
Few analysts are prepared to make bold forecasts about South Africa’s future political landscape. This paper breaks from that pattern and argues that the ANC is dying and will lose its parliamentary majority at or before the 2024 national election. We do not make this forecast recklessly but rather because the evidence points overwhelmingly in this direction.
Address by the Institute's Head of Special Research, Dr Anthea Jeffery, to the conference on ‘the national democratic revolution, land ownership, and the Green Paper on land reform’ in Pretoria on 31st May 2012.
The Protection of State Information Bill may now genuflect enough to guaranteed rights to convince a majority of Constitutional Court judges that it passes constitutional muster. But it still gives classification powers to hundreds of organs of state, bars independent or judicial review of their classification decisions, limits appeal to the courts (for all but state officials), and threatens journalists and others with imprisonment merely for ‘accessing’, ‘receiving’, ‘obtaining’ or ‘possessing’ classified information without ‘communicating’ it at all.
“On 7th December 2011 the Government brought new BEE procurement regulations into law. It also unveiled a BEE amendment bill intended to prohibit fronting and lay down prison and other penalties for misrepresenting BEE status. If the Bill is adopted in its current form, this will be the first time since 1994 that jail terms will be available for failure to comply with affirmative action laws.”
Dr Pieter Mulder has courted great controversy with comments that black South Africans have no historical claim to land in the Northern and Western Cape and also that blacks own a greater share of the country’s land than the government admits. His comments come against claims that whites owned 87% of South Africa’s land and that little progress has been made in changing this picture.
Early next year the South African Institute of Race Relations will publish the 2010/2011 edition of its world-renowned South Africa Survey. The Survey has been in print every year since 1946. Its reputation was established by Muriel Horrell, who joined the Institute shortly after the Second World War, in which she saw active service. Almost single-handedly, Miss Horrell wrote the Survey for the next 30 years, and after her retirement continued to contribute to it. The attached tribute was written by Sue Krige.
Research & Policy Briefs have evolved into the @Liberty reports. Click here to view them.
Annual South African mirror briefing by John Kane-Berman, the Chief Executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations in Pretoria on 1st November, Johannesburg on 5th November, and Cape Town on 7th November 2013.
Major changes to employment equity and black economic empowerment (BEE) rules are soon to take effect. Far from providing redress for apartheid’s wrongs, these will damage the poor majority by imposing penalties and overall compliance costs high enough to drive many small firms out of operation. This will reduce jobs, deter entrepreneurship and investment, and further hobble the economy. Apartheid’s victims would be far better served by putting economic growth before redistribution, as a different way of dividing up the existing economic pie will never be enough to meet the needs of a growing population.
The Democratic Alliance has thrown its weight behind the Employment Equity Amendment Bill of 2012. This has five specific implications for the country, the Western Cape, and the party itself.
Address by John Kane-Berman, chief executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR), to a "Freedom Seminar" held in conjunction with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Johannesburg, 17 October 2013.
The launch of the ‘political party platform’ Agang in February 2012 has shifted Dr Mamphela Ramphele from being a commentator on South African politics to being an active participant in the months leading up to the national election in 2014. This article draws together some of Dr Ramphele’s views on issues affecting South Africa and Africa.
In a speech to the Education Colloquium of the Democratic Alliance caucus on 15 May 2013, Professor Hermann Giliomee, vice-president of the South African Institute of Race Relations, put forward some lessons to be learnt from history by opposition parties as they reposition themselves for the prospect of power around the corner.
According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Licensing of Business Bill (the Bill) is intended to ‘promote the right to freedom of trade, occupation, and profession’. It is also supposed to ‘encourage a conducive environment that promotes compliance and sustainability of businesses’. [Section 2, Bill]
South African Institute of Race Relations submission to the Department of Mineral Resources regarding the Draft Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Bill of 2012 (full text).
At no point since 1994 has the Institute confronted more angst and pessimism about the future of the country than we saw in 2012. At briefing after briefing we are asked if South Africa is headed the way of the north-African uprisings or Zimbabwe. The same sentiment is reflected in newspaper columns and reports both here and abroad. Perhaps it is partly the Institute’s contrarian nature, but in many respects we are now more optimistic about the future than at any point in the last decade.
Not much is known about the deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC) and the country, Kgalema Motlanthe. On most matters he is guarded and unclear and sometimes contradictory. This article looks at some of the policy stances he has taken in the past.
This Research and Policy Brief paper seeks to determine the extent to which farmers are uniquely vulnerable to armed attack in South Africa. It draws comparisons between the rate of attack on farmers and their families to that of other citizens in South Africa.
In his address to the South African Institute of Race Relations in his capacity as its president Professor Jonathan Jansen examines what the state of education tells us about the state of South Africa.
In the aftermath of the Marikana shootings of 16th August 2012 the Institute has been confronted with a number of questions about the reasons and long-term implications of the violence. We have decided to republish an article jointly authored by the Institute's current Chief Executive Officer on the 25th of June 1976 as many of the points made in that article remain relevant to our current context. The article below appeared in the Financial Mail ten days after the police shootings and the explosions they caused in Soweto and elsewhere on 16th June 1976. It was written by John Kane-Berman and George Palmer, then respectively labour editor and editor of the Financial Mail. The Institute had meanwhile tried, to no avail, to warn the National Party government of the tension building up in Soweto as a result of the school language policy.
Overall the white paper makes an important first step in acknowledging the problem of family breakdown in South Africa, its causes and some of its effects. However, the white paper lacks concrete proposals that can be implemented by various government departments to address the problems identified. Moreover, it fails to acknowledge the role individual responsibility, norms, and attitudes can play in building more stable families, albeit with assistance and incentives from the Government.
Few analysts are prepared to make bold forecasts about South Africa’s future political landscape. This paper breaks from that pattern and argues that the ANC is dying and will lose its parliamentary majority at or before the 2024 national election. We do not make this forecast recklessly but rather because the evidence points overwhelmingly in this direction.
Address by the Institute's Head of Special Research, Dr Anthea Jeffery, to the conference on ‘the national democratic revolution, land ownership, and the Green Paper on land reform’ in Pretoria on 31st May 2012.
The Protection of State Information Bill may now genuflect enough to guaranteed rights to convince a majority of Constitutional Court judges that it passes constitutional muster. But it still gives classification powers to hundreds of organs of state, bars independent or judicial review of their classification decisions, limits appeal to the courts (for all but state officials), and threatens journalists and others with imprisonment merely for ‘accessing’, ‘receiving’, ‘obtaining’ or ‘possessing’ classified information without ‘communicating’ it at all.
“On 7th December 2011 the Government brought new BEE procurement regulations into law. It also unveiled a BEE amendment bill intended to prohibit fronting and lay down prison and other penalties for misrepresenting BEE status. If the Bill is adopted in its current form, this will be the first time since 1994 that jail terms will be available for failure to comply with affirmative action laws.”
Dr Pieter Mulder has courted great controversy with comments that black South Africans have no historical claim to land in the Northern and Western Cape and also that blacks own a greater share of the country’s land than the government admits. His comments come against claims that whites owned 87% of South Africa’s land and that little progress has been made in changing this picture.
Early next year the South African Institute of Race Relations will publish the 2010/2011 edition of its world-renowned South Africa Survey. The Survey has been in print every year since 1946. Its reputation was established by Muriel Horrell, who joined the Institute shortly after the Second World War, in which she saw active service. Almost single-handedly, Miss Horrell wrote the Survey for the next 30 years, and after her retirement continued to contribute to it. The attached tribute was written by Sue Krige.