There is a slowly dawning realisation on the part of the African National Congress government that South Africa is staring down the fiscal abyss. The situation is dire. There are at least four public agencies — electricity supplier Eskom, SA National Roads Agency (Sanral), South African Airways (SAA), and the SA Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) — […]
Sanral
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Something’s fishy in the state of Sanral
Call SA’s national ANC government nothing but determined! In the face of widespread opposition against the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) and e-tolling, even from the ANC’s own Gauteng legislature, Cyril Ramaphosa has come up with a “rescue plan”. The details of this plan have seen the expected opposition from Outa (Opposition to Urban […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Sanral’s new best friends
Once upon a time, e-tolls galvanised society. Like no other cause before or since, the hatred of e-tolls cut across class, politics and race. They were a superb nation-building tool, something I reflected on here. But things have changed. When e-tolls were finally implemented in early December, the battle was lost. Quite possibly the war, […]
Posted inGeneral
The (ir-)rational market versus democracy
The e-tolling debacle concentrates, in microcosmic format, the tension — if not the opposition — between the market and democracy, even if many regard the “free market” as the zenith of democracy. Or, to put it differently, this tension — which is always there — establishes the economic domain and the political in a specific […]
Posted inGeneral
Just pay the tolls goddamnit!
E-tolling, the practice of the government extracting yet more money out of the good citizens of Gauteng via their love of the motor vehicle, reaches fever pitch yet again today. The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance is going to court to get an urgent interdict to stop the implementation of the system on April 30. […]