Tag: governance

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.

Before the internet, businesses tended to operate in smaller areas and in a very siloed manner. Today, however, there is a global online economy, and the geographical boundaries that limited business operation areas have fallen away. The ease of access to information has become critical to successful operations, and the ability to leverage data has become a point of competitive differentiation.

The governance ecosystem is touted to give accountability, transparency, fairness and responsibility as the pillars on which corporate governance is built to all stakeholders and sanction or root out perverse conduct in an appropriate and balanced manner. This should keep the equilibrium of all stakeholders’ rights and obligations in check.

While the President has signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) into law, the bean counters at National Treasury have yet to start looking for their excel sheets needed to ensure the NHI is fully costed. The first reason is due to the confusion of objective versus political ideology. The NHI has been touted as introducing “universal healthcare coverage” (UHC).

At the AI Government Summit on 5 April 2024, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) launched South Africa’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Planning Discussion Document with the purpose of the discussion document being to initiate discussion between the public and private sector to facilitate AI innovation. 

President Ramaphosa has promulgated the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act. The NHI, in its bill form, has been controversial since its introduction and has attracted significant critique from various stakeholders. It is therefore likely that the Act will be the subject of fierce litigation, sooner or later.

The recent statements by ANC parliamentary chief whip Pemmy Majodina regarding the National Health Insurance (NHI) bill's ‘amendability’ have highlighted a significant misunderstanding of the law making process. Majodina's assurance that the bill can be amended if necessary, simplifies a complex legislative and judicial process.

While the African banking market has seen withdrawal of global banks over the last 5 years, the opportunity for localised banking has seen the opposite, driven by the expansion of African banking groups into the continent, led mostly by South African, West African, and Northern African banks.

In 2020, the National Treasury published for public comment a draft Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill, as an update of its draft two years earlier. This 2020 draft bill aims, ambitiously, at revising the separate laws which regulate the conduct of financial institutions of all kinds, be they banks, insurers, pension funds or medical schemes; and which regulate the conduct of providers of financial advisory, administration or payment services.

On 1 February 2024, new Draft Regulations were released, containing new Draft Sectoral Targets, and unpacking what businesses need to consider when setting goals. The public now has 90 days from release to comment on the draft.