If I were doing Auditor-General Terence Nombembe’s job I would be very angry and demoralised about dishing out the same warnings to local governments over the dismal performance of their municipalities every year. This week was another of those when Nombembe told us how financial management had degenerated over the past three years and irregular […]
South Africa
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Nkosazana good for AU, good for SA
As Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma prepared to take over her responsibilities as the new and first female leader of the African Union Commission, the reaction back home was somewhat bitter-sweet. Many said the former foreign affairs minister was being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. They argued SA was losing one of its finest. That she […]
Posted inGeneral
Just Zille, people. Move along
By Thato Choma It’s been a while now and Helen Zille is still being crucified for her “reckless” use of words on national television and the twitter streets. In March this year she referred to Eastern Cape pupils, who’ve moved to the Western Cape for a better education, as refugees. Zille made this statement after […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Wage subsidy: Cosatu doesn’t care about the youth
A drive on a weekday morning around the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg will reveal to you the real face of unemployment in South Africa. On the corners of the many avenues in this sprawling township where I grew up, young men and women roam the streets. Some play dice and morabaraba and some are […]
Posted inNews/Politics
South Africa’s democratic project: Managing the battles within
By Thapelo Tselapedi It is interesting to note that SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande, in contrast to Kgalema Motlanthe, has spoken rather favourably about the concept of a second transition. In an interview with Mandy Rossouw from City Press, Nzimande made the ‘revelation’ that “the deepening of our democracy cannot be taken any further if we […]
Posted inGeneral
The African Renaissance for Dummies
I’m probably going to make a fool of myself publishing this column, as it is about the economy, and I know very little about the economy. Until very recently, for instance, I was still under the impression that the Eurozone was a trance state one reaches during deep meditation. Apparently, it’s not that at all, […]
Posted inBusiness
The non-payment threat of the working class
By Themba Mbatha We have all accepted that the state’s economic preoccupation in the coming years should be the pursuit of a developmental state. To that end, President Jacob Zuma announced in the State of the Nation address an unprecedented public infrastructure spending programme to achieve the objectives of a developmental state. The estimated R800-billion […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Macroeconomic convergence within the SADC region
Since its evolution from the Southern Africa Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) into the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the Southern African regional formation has targeted gradually deepening its integration, starting with the creation of a free trade area in the coming decade. In addition to this free trade area, further goals such as the achievement […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Pantomime of the parvenu
South Africa is a particularly fractious society. Rarely does a week pass without something stirring the country’s intellectuals from their silences. The noise generated by this fractiousness says more, perhaps, about South Africa’s collective neurosis, than it does about anything else. What is amusing to behold, though, is the theatrics of intellectuals that play out […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
South Africa’s development paradigm
Development policy in post-apartheid South Africa has traditionally focused on the debate over the superiority of either state-controlled or market systems. Like many other developing world countries before it, South Africa expected that globalisation and the replacement of traditional industries by modern sectors would become a panacea for economic development in our country. Based on […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The geopolitical transformation and significance of South Africa
Since our country’s new democratic transition, South Africa has displayed remarkable levels of socio-political stability, which has resulted in a strong influence in Africa as well as within the international community. South Africa has one of the most advanced and diversified economies in Africa and also accounts for a significant proportion of global foreign trade. […]
Posted inGeneral
The Africans are coming
No matter your feelings on it, South Africa has been obsessed with the Spear. Many see it as a slur on the dignity of black people in South Africa. While others have held it up as an icon of freedom. It has consumed our media space and been on everyone’s minds. The whole issue has […]