Tag: Free Market Foundation

The South African Broadcasting Corporation was established in 1936 by the Broadcasting Act that year. That Act was substituted by a 1973 Broadcasting Act, which has been replaced by the current Broadcasting Act, of 1999.

Siviwe Gwarube is the first Democratic Alliance (DA) member to become Minister of Basic Education; an impressive feat that is fraught with peril. The DA did not nearly accomplish all that it should have after forming a government of national unity (GNU) with the African National Congress (ANC).

South African policymakers learn all the wrong lessons from other countries. Rather than look to the free and prosperous societies of the United States and Europe, politicians and pundits would rather push us to imitate Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba and Zimbabwe. And even when policymakers identify genuinely good role models, they take the wrong lessons.

With a newly established government of national unity in South Africa, the criminal justice system remains one of the most crucial areas for any society seeking peace. It would be in the best interest of the new government to direct its executive branch, especially the criminal justice system (Police and Courts), to prioritise violent crimes over other offences.

There is a rare opportunity to right a lot of South Africa’s wrongs in one go. Corruption and unemployment are two major roadblocks. Permit me to explain how they can be simultaneously addressed within the current administration. I suggest an amnesty largely on the African National Congress (ANC’s) past wrongdoing in office in return for liberalisation of labour laws. This may be for a bit further down the line.

Gargantuan and tyrannical unions like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), and National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have leveraged their power, numbers, money, and capacity to threaten violence, and in so doing hold the economy hostage.

The fluctuations of the South African currency (the rand) in the period leading up to the recent national and provincial elections, and during the negotiations by political parties to form a Government of National Unity (GNU), have resulted in many wild and drunken speculations - especially on social media.

Life might have been harder in the times of Moses, but it was simpler: Move towards a promised land, move away from an evil persecutor, and survive in between. His people understood where they were going and what they were prepared to sacrifice for it, and they had a clear purpose.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced that it will impose a 45% import tax on goods that cost R500 or less, imported from China through online retailers such as Shein and Temu. Unions and businesses praise this as a ‘levelling of the playing field’, but for the consumer it simply translates to higher prices.

The results are in. The African National Congress has attained 40% of the vote, the Democratic Alliance (DA) 21%, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) 14%, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) 9%. It is clear that some of these parties enjoy too much support in the context of a country that claims to be a constitutional state that prioritises the rule of law and which requires massive foreign and domestic private investment.